Houston Glass Company to manufacture insulators

Proposed Glass Factory.

A large glass factory is to be started in or near Houston for the manufacture of incandescent globes and electrical insulators. For the past two months Mr. Thomas C. Copping of the Houston Electrical Supply Company has been traveling through the East investigating conditions as they exist, and at the same time learning the trade both in theory and in the practical details. Last evening he returned and to-morrow will start off on a trip to inspect the different factory sites that have been offered. It is the intention to locate the factory where natural gas can be used for fuel and in the midst of the district in which the purest and most suitable sand for manufacturing purposes can be secured.

The company has already been incorporated and is now engaged in the manufacture of light globes, but does not make its own glass. Every facility is offered within a few miles of this city for a glass factory and backers are confident that they will have the finest proposition in existence.

Along the San Jacinto River the pure basic material exists in unlimited quantities, labor is cheap and natural gas as fuel can be obtained for the boring. Not one of the great factories in the East can compete with such conditions.

From a government expert Mr. Copping obtained a knowledge of the theory of glass making and after many difficulties, obtained work in one of the largest factories in the United States, located at Pittsburg, Pa. There he remained for a month and is now ready to go into business for himself.

From the material to be obtained near Houston any kind of glass can be manufactured at a cheapness that can defy any sort of competition.

In the East it is necessary to crush quartz to obtain the sand with which to manufacture glass. In some places old bottles and broken material is sold to be remelted. The Fox River in Missouri once contained sand such as is found in Texas, but now that has been exhausted by dredging: It is necessary to make long shipments before the mills can be supplied with the primary substances from which glass is made. Here green glass and insulators can be manufactured from the sand just as it is dredged from the bottom of the San Jacinto River.