[Trade Journal]
Publication: American Glass Review
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
vol. 50, no. 9, p. 18, col. 2
"Were you ever in Muncie?" Thirty or forty years ago this question was asked hundreds of time in the glass industry. In those days the natural gas boom in the Hoosier State was at its height and Muncie with its numerous glass plants was the Mecca of hundreds of workers from the Ohio Valley and the Eastern district, principally from New Jersey and the Philadelphia-Baltimore section. Talk about a busy town! Muncie sure was that and then some. And no wonder. Just look at this lineup of glass companies in business there:
Ball Bros. immense fruit jar works; Muncie Flint Glass Works; Port Fruit Jar Co.; Hemingray Glass Co.; Maring-Hart Window Glass Co.; C. H. Over Window Glass Co., and another concern that catered to the glass industry, the Gill Clay Pot Co. All the glass factories mentioned above, with the exception of the Port plant, contained two or more furnaces and they gave employment to several thousand workmen. Today Ball Bros., Hemingrays and the Gill plant are the sole survivors of the gas boom days!
At Elwood, Ind., a similar story might be related. Where the gas field was in its glory the following glass producing concerns were located at that place:
Macbeth-Evans Glass Co.; W. R. McCloy Glass Co;, manufacturing off-hand lamp chimneys and allied lines; Elwood Window Glass Co.; Nivison-Weiskopf Bottle Co., and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. Of all of these only the Macbeth-Evans plant now is-engaged in the manufacture of glass in that city, although the Pittsburgh Plate still operate a clay pot and tank block factory there.
Scattered to the four points of the compass are the remainder of the plants while some have been abandoned forever. Gone to other fields is the large army of skilled workmen most of whom have been displaced in recent years by the onward march of the automatic machine. And also gone is the glory of the old-time worker who made the welkin ring on pay nights when the Hoosier State gas boom was at its crest. And only memories, remain!
