Louisville Glass Companies

This is a subject of special interest to me.  As an antique bottle collector and amateur glass “historian”, I’ve researched some of the history of the early glass factories that operated in Louisville, Kentucky during the mid-late Victorian era, i.e. the last half of the 19th century.

There were seven separate physical locations in Louisville where these glassmaking factories once stood.  (None of the old buildings are still standing………. all have long since been demolished).  A few of the locations saw a succession of owners/operators and involved more than one firm or business name.   All of these glassworks were involved in producing, for the most part, common utilitarian and container glass (bottles and fruit jars)  or plate and window glass.   A high percentage of their output consisted of ordinary “green glass” (aqua or blue-green) ware.

Note: none of these establishments were producers of “art glass” or glass for purely decorative use, although some “off-hand” glass items, such as doorstops, canes, hats, rolling pins and other “whimseys” were evidently occasionally made by employees, at least at the original Kentucky Glass Works of the 1850s.  Little is known about such items, and attribution can be very uncertain unless strong evidence is shown that a certain item has been passed down within a particular family.

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KENTUCKY GLASS WORKS / LOUISVILLE GLASS WORKS

This operation was the first clearly documented factory in Louisville that produced glass.  (Zadok Cramer’s The Navigator (in certain later editions) mentioned that a “glass house” existed in Louisville (sometime in the circa 1811-1814 time period?) but no specifics were given, and virtually nothing is known about such an operation.

Early bottle and glass collector and glass factory researcher Harry Hall White published a very informative article in the February, 1926 issue of  MAGAZINE ANTIQUES (on pages 85-88),  in which he discussed the Kentucky Glass Works.  In that article he illustrated some of the early flasks that were made there.

Kentucky Glass Works started operations in 1850.  Local newspaper advertisements for the works first appeared in August of 1850.  The factory buildings were located on the southeast corner of Clay & Franklin Streets in downtown Louisville.  That glassworks was called the Kentucky Glass Works until about 1855.   In about 1855 the factory name was changed slightly to “Louisville Glass Works”.    Under the name “Louisville Glass Works” the factory continued operating until sometime in 1873, but under a succession of business firm names/partnerships.

The various firm names over the years were:
1)   Taylor, Stanger, Ramsey & Company (1850)
2)  Douglass & Taylor (also called Douglass Glass Works) (c. 1850-1855)
3)  Douglass Rutherford & Company (c.1855-1856)
4)  Stanger, Doyle & Company (c.1856)
5)  Krack, Stanger & Company (1856-c.1864)
6)  J. A. Krack & Company (c.1864-Feb.1, 1866)
7)  Krack & Reed (Feb. 1,1866-1868)
8)  Krack, Reed & Company (1868-1871)  [See ad pictured from Nov. 1868, below].
9)  L.S. [Leander S.] Reed & Brother (1871-c. 1873)

From sometime in 1873 to late 1877 there was apparently no bottle-manufacturing plant in Louisville in active operation.  (Although, the Star Glass Works was operating right across the river in New Albany, Indiana).

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Later bottle factories in Louisville included the Southern Glass Company/Works (1877-c.1885),   the  Kentucky Glass Works Company (1879-1887)  and the   Falls City Glass Company (1884-1892).

Two other lesser-known firms included the  Falls City Glass Works (1864-1865) on Fulton Street (a short-lived venture unrelated to the much later Falls City Glass Co.),  and Kentucky Cooperative Glass Company (c.1897-c.1901).

Another firm (Louisville Plate Glass Works, 1874-c.1888) which was located in the Portland neighborhood (west of downtown) produced plate and window glass.   The LPGW factory name was shortened to “Louisville Glass Works” in some business directory listings of that time period, and that has caused confusion among some later researchers who mistakenly thought it was a continuation of the Louisville Glass Works of 1855-1873.  It was not, but a separate, unrelated enterprise that made plate glass for windows, skylights, mirrors, etc., but NOT hollowware such as bottles and jars.

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Across the Ohio River,  New Albany Glass Works (1867-c.1872) , and  Star Glass Company  (c.1869-1879, later continuing as W. C. DePauw Glass Company- c.1879-1893) operated  in the city of New Albany, Indiana (Floyd County).    Jeffersonville Plate Glass Works operated in Jeffersonville, Indiana  (Clark County) circa 1880-1884.

A three-part article discussing all seven Louisville glass factories that operated in the late 1800s was published in Bottles and Extras collector’s magazine in 2005, and these articles are currently available online.  They cover each site with more detail.  These are saved here as  .PDF files.

• • • Louisville Glass Factories of the 19th Century, Part 1
    • Louisville Glass Factories of the 19th Century, Part 2
    • Louisville Glass Factories of the 19th Century, Part 3

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For an extensive list of glass manufacturers’ marks seen on bottles, fruit jars, insulators, tableware and other items, listed in alphabetical order, please click here to go to the  Glass Bottle Marks, Page One .

Please click here to go to my site Welcome / Home Page.

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