Hemingray Glass Co.

Hemingray Glass Co. is one of the notable names in Muncie’s industry past! The company was founded in1848 in Cincinnati, but moved to Muncie in 1888 after their Cincinnati plant was damaged by a flood, and due to the discovery of natural gas in Muncie. 

Hemingray is remembered for being one of the largest manufacturers of glass insulators used in telephone poles. They later became a division of Owens-Illinois, who bought the Muncie plant in 1933, and began manufacturing glass blocks as well as insulators and eventually cathode ray tubes for televisions. The plant ceased glass production operations in glass in 1972, after it was determined that the Muncie plant needed to be rebuilt to meet demands of color tv sets. They were a major employer of the city, with several generations of workers spending their whole career with the company. The building on South Macedonia just north of Memorial is no longer standing, but was memorialized by a plaque in 2011.