Early Industry: GLASS

Glass Industry (placement site is River City Winery)

In 1865, John B. Ford opened the New Albany Glass Works to create bottles, paper weights and fruit jars. Ford took advantage of New Albany’s location along the Ohio River in receiving his materials both by rail and barge. Local white sand from Borden, Indiana was mixed with soda shipped from Michigan and Kansas, and the fires that melted the sand and soda used southern Indiana (and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania) coal.

Ford next expanded his business by hiring skilled glass craftsmen from Europe and mastering the formula for creating plate glass. In 1869, New Albany Glassworks became the first United States producer of plate glass. Prior to that time Europe had been the only plate glass producer, which made it a costly import.

Plate glass was produced by pouring specially formulated glass onto the top of a large copper-topped table. The glass was smoothed and flattened into even plates by hand, using long rollers. The glass was then left to cool. In all, this was a complex process requiring a high level of consistency and experience. New Albany Glassworks was undoubtedly proud of its accomplishment. The first window panes were installed in John Hiebs’ store at 318 Pearl Street, New Albany.

The 1873 financial panic and resulting economic downturn pushed Ford to sell his glass works to a cousin, Washington C. DePauw. Then the glass works was located from Tenth to Thirteenth Streets along the banks of the Ohio River. The company occupied 15 acres and employed 165 people.

By 1875,the company was renamed DePauw’s American Plate Glass Company and soon became the largest glass manufacturing company in the United States, at one point producing 1.5 million feet of plate glass and 20,000 gross of fruit jars annually.

Craftsmen working at the DePauw glass works came from England, Belgium and the eastern U.S. They were creating intricate glass pieces by blowing glass with long-stemmed iron blow-pipes, in addition to mixing and shaping plate glass. The glass works was now located from 10th to 13th Streets and employed over 1,000 men.

In 1893, the DePauw glass works ceased production. Many New Albany businesses benefitted from the success of the DePauw glass works, including the New Albany Woolen & Cotton Mills, the Hosiery Mill, the New Albany Rolling Mill, the Ohio Falls Iron Works, the New Albany National Bank, the New Albany Box & Basket Company, the Merchants National Bank, the New Albany Banking Company and the New Albany Gas Light & Coke Company.

Within two years of the DePauw glass works closure, many of these businesses also closed, including the textile and iron mills (which later reopened for steel production). Today, glass pieces and globules from that era can occasionally be found washed up on the Ohio River bank.

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