United States Glass Company


The United States Glass Company was a trust formed by the combination of numerous glass companies. The factories were located from western Pennsylvania to Indiana.

History

On February 9, 1891, the New York Times reported on the founding of the company, which included seventeen factories. After the companies combined, two new plants were built. One, an automatic facility, was constructed at Gas City, Indiana. A hand-worked glass operation was also added at Tiffin, Ohio. The plants all received a letter designation. The main office started at South 9th and Bingham Streets, Pittsburgh, PA, in the former Ripley Glass facility, and moved to Tiffin in 1938. Over time, the factories closed until only the Tiffin plant survived. The company went bankrupt in 1963, with the Tiffin plant reorganizing as the "Tiffin Art Glass Company". The other plant which survived to that point was the Glassport, Pennsylvania plant. It was closed after a storm on August 3, 1963 which resulted in the factory's water tower collapsing through the plant roof. The glass furnaces cooled and hardened, and it was not cost-effective to remove the 250 ton hardened glass and make the repairs that would have been needed to restart the facility.

Specialties