Talk to Emhart Glass employees at the Owensville plant and they will tell you most people think they make glass.
While they do not make glass here, companies worldwide use refractories, heat resisting ceramics products made in Owensville, to manufacture glass products of all shapes, sizes and uses. A display of glass products manufactured with Emhart Glass refractories is on display in the Farmers Merchant annex building on First Street.
Emhart Glass, based in Switzerland, marks its 100th year of operations this year. Owensville’s plant is observing the company’s centennial with an open house Friday beginning with an opening ceremony at 1 p.m.; tours of the facility, which once housed the Brown Shoe, Co., go from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Gary Rice of Astral Glass of New Haven will present a glass blowing demonstration.
Andrew Purvis, business and production development manager at Owensville, said “It’s all about controlled cooling” when asked to described the products manufactured here as they related to creating glass. Refractories made here are used to flow molten glass into production lines to create glass items all over the world.
