L. E. Smith Glass Reminiscences

AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY SPENCE

• The original building of the LE Smith Co was built and occupied by the Acme Lumber And Supply Co, which constructed it of concrete blocks handmade at the site.
• After the fire of 1913, which destroyed all the building, and while the new building was being built, the Smith workers continued making glass and wore straw hats to protect them from the sun.
• LE Smith originated the egg separator, the glass percolator top, and the glass mixing bowl.
• Headlights were originally made of window glass. The gov't decreed them to be made of non-glare glass in 1919.
• LE Smith made 22 (another edit says 23) varieties of non glare headlights, the first being the Violet Ray Lens made of blue glass. They also made a lens called the Black Cow, sprayed black inside, and the More Light, which spread the light over the road instead of straight ahead.
• LE Smith made the first Ford headlights and continued to make 50% of all their headlights until just before WWII (nearly 22 years) when Ford began making their own,
• In the 1970s LE Smith operated in 80,000 square feet of floor space (originally only 20,000 sq feet).
• In 1972 LE Smith had 480 employees and their total production was $6,865,000. By 1977 it had 270 employees and their total production was $8,600,000.
• April 26, 1968 the new visitor's center was dedicated
• A man named Johnny Mullin, once a Superintendent at LE Smith, lived upstairs of the sales room for many years.
• In the 1960s LE Smith opened a warehouse in Los Angeles.
• LE Smith operated a coal mine that produced the gas to run the factory. It was located behind (and under) the factory.

HEARD AT THE MUSEUM

MOUNT PLEASANT GLASS MUSEUM

• LE Smith made dinnerware sold to theaters that gave them away as premiums.
• LE Smith produced Barber Mugs
• The largest swung vases of the 1960s were made with punch bowl molds. One of the biggest was called the Texas Bud Vase.
• The best steel used to make the draw knife tool was from pitch fork tongs. Jeff Crider, mold maker at Lenox.
• Some of the blowers chewed tobacco and their spit congealed within the pipe. It caused many an argument, but the worst part was the it clogged the pipe and Jeff had to clean it out. It wasn't easy. It also discouraged young workers from learning to blow glass.