Kristi K.: Here to talk about the history of the glass industry is our guest, Milton Ford Knight, also known as Tony, who was a CEO and also a glass historian who started the Glass Heritage Museum, a mobile platform to showcase the importance of glass early innovators and their impact on today's world.

Tony also is the great grandson of Edward Ford, an early glass pioneer, which I will just bet had something to do with his interest and depth of knowledge in the glass history that we're going to be talking about today.

So, Tony, welcome to Business Life, 360.

It's great to have you here.

Tony Knight: Thanks, Kristie.

Kristi K.: Well, we can't wait to talk to you about the history of glass.

So first of all, you have spent decades studying the roots of the glass industry, of the innovators and some of the icons.

So give us an understanding, if you would, as to some of those things that were happening.

Let's just say back and maybe the 17 or 1800s and what was going on in this particular region.

Tony Knight: Well, I think it's an interesting painting of the background of where Glass came from.

And you have to understand that at this particular point in time, travel wasn't very easy.

Travel wasn't you couldn't get to Ohio, you couldn't get to Toledo, Ohio.

And quite frankly, we end up the railroads work their way through into the Ohio River Valley.

Sometime in the 1860s or 1870s, the canal systems were an opportunity to grow commerce in this area as well.

And so all of a sudden we start in the 1870s and 1880s, having a lot of interest.

So it took a while, it took energy, it took the development of of gas resources, it took the energy of coal.

Anthracite coal was discovered in Pennsylvania as well.

So those are all things that had an impact on the growth.

Kristi K.: So in terms of the emergence, then in terms of natural resources, in addition to that, were there some other things that really made the region ripe for the summer?

Tony Knight: Well, I think what it transpired was that we found silica sand and natural gas.

Findlay was the Ohio, which was northwestern.

Ohio was the one of the early places.

The other key was really the discovery of salt under this, the city of Detroit and under Lake Huron, as well as even under Cleveland.

Those all helped in the process of making soda ash.

And so the ash was an important ingredient that was imported from Europe largely before that time.

Kristi K.: Tell us about some of those key people who made the glass industry what it is today and really planted those seeds early.

Tony Knight: And I think those those people, which would include Michael Owens, Kirk clearly, and Edward Drummond Leidy, who came out of the East Coast and came here to Toledo.

He was probably the first individual who came, came here and brought his glass company, Libbey Glass, to the Toledo market.

He was looking for the sand, He was looking for the deal on a natural gas, and he was and that was beneficial.

Edward Ford came shortly thereafter and and I mean, within a year or two after, after Edward Drummond Libbey came here and he came here for the same reason, but his family, his father, J.B Ford or Cat, was often referred to as Captain John B, came actually out of New Albany, Indiana, which is right near Saint Louis, moved to Pittsburgh, helped establish Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.

And then he and his son sold their interests in Pittsburgh.

Plate Glass Edward came here, used the money from the sale and and JB went up and created a company called Michigan Alkali, which made soda ash.

Kristi K.: So from these icons, if you will, these pioneers, certain companies were formed.

And those companies I know were significant in terms of product development and then future contracts with Ford, with General Motors.

Tell us about some of those companies and the products that they really started to bring forward to the public and to industry in that day?

Tony Knight: Yeah, you have to you have to think about these time periods that include did a depression in 1895, a World War one, a huge recession.

And in in the twenties, which bankrupted nearly bankrupted General Motors.

And you look at these individuals and you say to yourself, how did all this how did all this happen here in in Toledo, Ohio?

Well, they survived.

They were they carried through Orange and Libby combined together to make not only the Owens bottle company, but also the Libby Owens Plate Glass Company.

And then in addition to that, you had Edward Drummond, Edwin Ford, excuse me, and Edward Ford effectively brought the glass company to Toledo.

But they all came into the Depression and all those things changed.

Owens Bottle Company ended up merging with the Illinois Glass Company in 1929.

Libby Owens Plate Glass Company merged with the Edward Ford Plate Glass Company to make Ellsworth.

What ultimately ends up happening is years later, you start to see the benefit, the outgrowth of those things.

Owens Corning fiberglass came out of the Owens Illinois group and Libby Owens Ford had the same thing.

And Johns Manville in the fiberglass business came out of Lowell of Perm.

Glass came with Norma HP, a number of others.

Kristi K.: So many, I'll call them initially tangential businesses, but now significant industries have really emerged from there.

Things like solar.

What are some of the other.

Tony Knight: Ones for solar would be a great is a great example.

Harold McMaster Norm Nitschke worked for Libyan's Ford and left and set up their own business out of out of perma glass.

They sold it to a little company called Guardian Industries up in Detroit, and Guardian went on to be a $600 million a year company.

Kristi K.: You really think about the impact that the glass industry has had on our lifestyles, and it truly has made not only our community, our state, our country, but the globe a better place.

And really much of that history was started in northwest Ohio.

Tony Knight: Yeah, it's amazing how how global the companies here were.

Kristi K.: Tony Knight, thank you so much for being here in business life.

368 Your knowledge and your history of the glass industry has really been.

Thank you.

Tony Knight: Kristi So as we discussed, when it comes to glass as an industry, it's not about naming rights or headlines.

It's about providing inspiration, motivation and about planting the seeds of innovation for the future.

And that innovation is just what we're exploring next.

So let's head out on location to see how the exciting glass business continues to change our world and our future.