Hemingray Glass Company

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Hemingray Glass Company
FormerlyGray & Hemingray
Gray, Hemingray & Bros.
Gray, Hemingray & Brother
Hemingray Bros. & Company
R. Hemingray & Company
IndustryGlass
Founded1848 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
FoundersRobert Hemingray
Ralph Gray
Defunct1972
FatePurchased by the Owens-Illinois Glass Company
Headquarters
Muncie, Indiana
Number of locations
3
Area served
North America
ProductsPin insulators

The Hemingray Glass Company was an American glass manufacturing company founded by Robert Hemingray and Ralph Gray in Cincinnati in 1848.[1] In its early years, the company went through numerous and frequent name changes, including Gray & Hemingray; Gray, Hemingray & Bros.; Gray, Hemingray & Brother; Hemingray Bros. & Company; and R. Hemingray & Company before incorporating into the Hemingray Glass Company, Inc. in 1870.[1] The Hemingray Glass Company had factories in Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky with main production in Muncie, Indiana. Although Hemingray was best known for its telegraph insulators, the company produced many other glass items including bottles, fruit jars, pressed glass dishes, tumblers, battery jars, fishbowls, lantern globes, and oil lamps.[1] In 1933, the Owens-Illinois Glass Company purchased the company but retained the production facility in Muncie under the Hemingray name.

The main plant in Muncie closed in 1972 and insulator production ceased.[2] The complex is now used by Gerdau Ameristeel, a steel production company headquartered in Brazil.

Insulators[]

Hemingray was best known for producing telegraph and telephone pin insulators used on utility poles. To give an overview of the large variety of styles produced, the following table contains the twenty most common.[3] There are two numbers given in this table: the Consolidated Design (CD) number and the style number. The CD number is from a classification system developed by collectors that refers to the shape of the insulator and is completely independent from the Hemingray Glass Company.[4] However, the style number (or name) was assigned by Hemingray to each insulator. Due to slight modifications in design over years of production, single styles can span multiple CD numbers.

CD Style Introduced Discontinued Usage Nickname Image
106 9 1890s 1940s Telephone, rural Pony CD 106 Hemingray No. 9.jpg
107 9 1950s 1960s Telephone, rural Pony CD 107 Hemingray No. 9.jpg
113 12 1890s 1940s Telephone Double Groove Pony CD 113 Hemingray No. 12.jpg
121 16 1890s 1920s Long distance Toll CD 121 Hemingray No. 16.jpg
122 16 1919 1960s Telephone, long distance Toll CD 122 Hemingray No. 16.jpg
124 4 1880s 1910s Telephone CD 124 Hemingray No. 13.jpg
125 15 1870s 1933 Telegraph CD 125 Hemingray No. 15.jpg
128 CSA 1930s 1950s Telephone, long distance CD 128 Hemingray CS.jpg
129 TS 1940s 1960s Transposition CD 129 Hemingray TS.jpg
133 Standard 1870s 1910s Telegraph Signal CD 133 Hemingray Standard.jpg
134 18 1880s 1930s Telegraph, secondary power distribution CD 134 Hemingray No. 18.jpg
145 21 1880s 1930s Telegraph Beehive CD 145 Hemingray "beehive".jpg
147 1907 1920s Telegraph Spiral Groove CD 147 Hemingray "spiral groove".jpg
152 40 1910 1921 Telegraph Hoopskirt CD 152 Hemingray No. 40.jpg
154 42 1921 1960s Telegraph CD 154 Hemingray No. 42.jpg
155 45 1938 1960s Telephone, long distance CD 155 Hemingray No. 45.jpg
160 14 1880s 1956 Telephone, rural Baby Signal CD 160 Hemingray No. 14.jpg
162 19 1880s 1940s Secondary power distribution, telephone Signal CD 162 Hemingray No. 19.jpg
163 19 1940s 1960s Secondary power distribution CD 163 Hemingray No. 19.jpg
164 20 1880s 1940 Secondary power distribution CD 164 Hemingray No. 20.jpg

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Whitten, David (2015). "Hemingray Glass Company". glassbottlemarks.com. Retrieved May 25, 2015.
  2. ^ Meier, Bill (August 27, 1995). "Hemingray Glass Insulators - 100 Years Of History". Insulators.info. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  3. ^ Willis, Christian. "Hemingray.info - The Hemingray Database: Top 20 Identified Insulators". Hemingray.info. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  4. ^ Meier, Bill (December 14, 2004). "CD Numbers Explained". Insulators.info. Retrieved January 28, 2019.

External links[]


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