Walkerton cut glass: the art the town was famous for, 1910–1919

1910–1919 · the Central Cut Glass Co.; heritage kept by the historical society

Walkerton's one art industry began with a scouting trip: on Wednesday 2 February 1910 a committee of three men from a Chicago cut-glass factory came to Walkerton to talk the town into hosting a works, and the town talked fast — the cornerstone of the factory was laid with a public ceremony on 30 April 1910, and the Central Cut Glass Co. — its works here styled Factory No. 2, Herman Roseen president and N. W. Ericson secretary — was set to start operations on 15 August 1910 with some fifty skilled glass cutters, expecting a hundred and fifty within sixty days. The course that followed is the historical society's own exhibit, drawn from the Independent: a dynamite explosion in July 1913; recovery; and the end on 19 February 1919, when the factory was destroyed by a fire of unknown origin and, in the record reached, was not rebuilt. For that short time, the society's exhibit says, Walkerton "was famous for its cut glass" — deep-cut crystal blown and ground by craftsmen the factory brought to town, an art practiced here at factory scale. The factory's industrial course — its recruitment, its payroll, its place in the town's business record — belongs to Businesses, flagged's note; what Culture carries is the heritage, and the heritage has an address: the Central Cut Glass / Walkerton Cut Glass collection is the featured collection of the Walkerton Digital Library, the historical society's online archives, where the surviving pieces are catalogued one by one. The town's art outlived its factory by becoming its collection.

Sources:

1. Walkerton Area Historical Society, "The Story of Walkerton's Central Cut Glass Company (Factory No. 2)," exhibit of the Walkerton Digital Library (walkertondigitallibrary.omeka.net) — the 1910 recruitment and cornerstone, the officers, the 1913 explosion, the fire of 19 February 1919, drawn from the Walkerton Independent.
2. Walkerton Digital Library, home and collections pages (the Central Cut Glass / Walkerton Cut Glass collection as the featured collection).