(ROSSFORD, OH—July 28, 2022) In conjunction with the area’s celebration of the International Year of Glass, Rossford’s weekly Stroll the Street will feature several special activities on Tuesday, August 2. Stroll the Street is coordinated by the Rossford Convention & Visitors Bureau and is held on Tuesdays from 4:30 pm -7:30 pm in Downtown Rossford and the Edward Ford Memorial Park.
City of Rossford officials will read a proclamation prior to the beginning of live music at 5:30 pm. that August 2, 2022, is International Year of Glass Day in Rossford, Ohio.
NSG (the former Libbey-Owens-Ford Company) is offering free guided tours on golf carts at its float glass facility on August 2. Tours will run from 2 pm. to 6 pm and require advance registration at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0448acaf23a1fd0-rossford. The 45-minute tours will give visitors an up-close look at where thousands of Rossford residents worked in the glass industry.
While at Stroll the Street, visitors can enjoy the Polka tunes of the Randy Krajewski Band from 5:30 pm -7:30 pm and purchase homemade pierogi made by Rossford’s All Saints Catholic Church. In addition, visitors of all ages can paint a glass coaster for free during the event. NSG is supplying the glass coasters and paints.
Stroll the Street will also feature 10 food trucks, arts and crafters, face painting, and handmade glass gifts from Firenation Glass.
About Rossford, Ohio
In 1898, Edward Ford purchased 173 acres along the Maumee River to build the Edward Ford Plate Glass Company. Ford named the city “Rossford” by combining the last name of his second wife, Caroline Ross, with his name.
Hundreds of European immigrants, often recruited by Edward Ford, especially Eastern Europeans, emigrated to Rossford to find work in his new glass company. At least 18 different ethnic groups have been identified in Rossford, including individuals from Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Italy, and Ukraine. Ford also encouraged African American families to relocate to Rossford from the Creighton, Pennsylvania area. This transference was a common phenomenon in the American Midwest where the industrial revolution fostered the growth of hundreds of manufacturing enterprises.
By 1900, the Edward Ford Plate Glass Co. was producing six million feet of glass per year thereby eclipsing Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company as the largest manufacturer of flat glass in the nation.
In 1926, Edward Ford adopted a new Belgian technique, known as the Bicheroux process, for casting plate glass through water-cooled rollers. This flat glass production process greatly streamlined production, and, in the 1930s, the plant received an exclusive contract to supply all the glass for vehicles produced by General Motors Corporation.
One of LOF’s largest orders in the 1930s was for window glass for New York’s Empire State Building which used Libbey-Owens-Ford glass exclusively.
In 1946, Libbey-Owens-Ford began to manufacture an insulated glass known as Thermopane, an insulated window glass. In 1951, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were sealed in Thermopane glass at the National Archives.
