Tuesday-  Today we travel downriver from Oglebay Resort (Wheeling) where we are staying to Paden City which is on the border of Tyler and Wetzel Counties.  Paden City is home to the Wissmach Glass Company which started in 1903.  Unlike the other glass producers that we have visited so far, that facility produces stained sheet glass.  Like the other places that we have visited, this facility used furnaces to heat and melt glass cullet or they use the basic ingredients, soda ash lime and sand, to make molten glass.  Colors are created by adding certain ingredients like metals.  Glass is dipped from the furnace in iron ladles from two different furnaces giving the sheet its unique color.  No to sheets of glass produced this way is exactly the same.  The glass is poured from the ladles onto a metal table and mixed by two workers with what looks like iron stubby pitchforks.  Then it is raked by the forks into a roller which forms the sheet onto a table below.  Another worker pushes the sheets(about 32 in. by 84 in.) onto a 125 ft. conveyor where the glass cools. At the end of the conveyor two workers cut the sheets to size to be packed for shipping or storage by yet another worker.  They produce 18 patterns and over 5000 different shades and colors.  Sand for the process is acquired from Berkeley Springs WV and Gore VA.  Soda Ash comes from Wyoming and the lime used comes from Greer Industries based near Morgantown.

Mixing two ladles of glass of two different colors preparing to run it through the rollers to make a glass sheet.

Wissmach Glass is shipped to customers around the World to places like the Middle East, Germany Australia, and across the U.S.  Why do you think this would this be the case? List 4 possible reasons to discuss.  

After lunch in New Martinsville WV we went back to Paden City WV to Marble King.  Marble King produces marbles for many uses and they are used in many places.  After a 1958 fire, Marble King moved to a closed glass factory site, today the building is over 100 years old.

Marble King furnace- Marble King marble making machines would be in front of the furnace.  Out of service due to electrical outage due to storm.

Marbles are made mostly of cullet so Marble King gets scrap glass from many sources.

Cullet for marbles Marble King

After having engineering students from WVU come and assess their furnaces, they designed and built a new one changing the system of how they make marbles slightly.  Hurricane Katrina's effect on rising  gas prices caused them to realize a savings of 30%.  Innovative thinking of this sort has led to marbles being purchased for use in scrubbers that remove particulates from power plant emissions, for medical uses, and as inert filler in wine making allowing for a higher quality wine.  Marbles are still used by children for the game marbles.

What might be some other uses of marbles?  List as many as you can with your group and discuss, then discuss with the whole class.

On our return trip to Wheeling we went to Moundsville in Marshall County and saw the penitentiary which operated from 1866 to 1995.  Across the street from the penitentiary is the Grave Creek Mound, which is the largest of its type in the United States.  Beside the mound, is a museum and archaeological facility with many artifacts from the earliest West Virginians to Civil War era artifacts.  Beside the mound is a garden with the agricultural crops that the ancient civilizations raised.

Seven crops can be found in the garden, what do you think they are?