Sunday, May 22, 2011

Greentown Glass Museum

One of the cities that my sister and I drove through on our way to Kokomo was Greentown. We noticed that there was a sign that said Greentown Glass Museum. We were running late so we decided to back track after the KOG factory tour and come back to Greentown to tour their museum.

I like glass and I have numerous books about glass companies in the U.S. so we were under the assumption that this museum would have examples of glass from numerous companies. Well, we were wrong and we were pleasantly surprised.

Here is the fountain outside of the museum and the museum sign.This museum is about Greentown Glass the company. Neither one of us have ever heard of Greentown glass. The reason for this is that the factory only made glass for 9 years before it burnt to the ground in 1903.

We were the only ones in the museum and had the full attention of the little old lady who was our guide. She was so friendly and full of information. We really were lucky that day by getting 2 great tour guides who were both friendly and full of knowledge.

My sister immediately fall in love with their chocolate glass. This glass is brown like chocolate and has a white haze similar to what chocolate sometimes has on the outside.

Not only are the colors fabulous but the detail in the molded glass and how well the glass is molded is unlike most of the glass I have seen before. They have a pattern reminiscent of a brilliant cut glass pattern but it is molded not cut. Whoever made the molds and maintained them did a fantastic job. Seams were barely visible and even the small details were fully formed and free of air bubbles or voids in the glass. My father was a journeyman mold maker so those kind of details catch my eye.

They didn't allow photos so I will have to pull some photos off the Internet to show you.Look at that detail. All those little dots. This is the cactus pattern.

After we left the museum, we headed to an antique shop in town. The shoppe owner was a wealth of information. The shoppe had a lot of chocolate ware made by both Greentown Glass and Fenton. The Fenton glass just doesn't have the same look as the Greentown Glass. It appears that they may have bought Greentown's molds but the color is not the same nor is the quality.

This is a photo of a restored old gas station in downtown Greentown. Isn't it adorable. :ook at the old gas pumps.I also shot this photograph of the bricks on the side of the antique shoppe. The bricks were short and laid very uneven. It was hard to get perspective on the size. The bricks were approximately 2 1/2 inches tall max.After we left Greentown, we headed to Flora, IN to pick up my custom made pavers from Wildcat Creek Brick Company.

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