Glass History 

Ground was broken for the glass plant at Fredonia on July 9, 1904. The first window glass was made December 24, 1904. The Caney plant started a couple of years later. The Fredonia plant is described as a 48-blower capacity, employing 48 blowers, 48 gatherers, 48 snappers, 12 flatteners and 16 cutters, these with other employes making about 300 men. The production of this plant is over 5,000 boxes of window glass per week, each mercantile box containing fifty square feet. The Caney plant is what is termed as a 30-blower capacity, requiring 30 blowers, 30 gatherers, 30 snappers, 10 cutters and 9 flatteners.

In the making of window glass a large furnace or tank is required. The materials used in the building of such a furnace include the very best fire clay to be had, most of which is imported from Germany. During the last few years the Fredonia Company has been mixing this German clay with a clay obtained in Missouri. The walls of the furnace are sixteen inches thick. That is, the size of the blocks used in building up the walls is each 12 by 16 by 24 inches. The tops of the furnace are made of silica brick, each brick 2 by 16 by 12. After the furnace is constructed it is filled with large quantities of broken glass, called by the trade name "cullet." It requires 700 tons to fill such a furnace as that at Fredonia. This broken glass is fused by intense heat. This step is necessary in order to preserve the fire clay blocks, the molten glass forms a glazing over the blocks and preserves them, whereas had raw material been introduced at first the molten mass would have eaten into the fire clay and honeycombed them so they would last only two or three weeks.

The raw materials used in making window glass consists of sand, crushed limestone, sulphate of soda, commonly known as salt cake, soda ash and carbon The proportions vary some under different atmospheres. For the blowing of the large glass natural gas is used for fuel. In a plant of the size of that at Fredonia about 1,500,000 cubic feet per day are required. All window glass is first made into a cylinder, then being cracked open from end to end. Each cylinder then reheated in what is termed as a flattening oven and flattened out on large flat fire clay stones. While the heat required for the melting of the raw material is between 2,800¡ and 3,200¡ Fahrenheit, the heat required in the flattening process is from 1,400¡ to 1,600¡ Fahrenheit. After the glass is flattened it goes through annealing lehrs then comes out into the cutting room, where it is assorted and cut with a diamond.

In 1911 there were eleven window glass plants in Kansas.

Source: Kansas History Project