Former Factories of Huntington Tour

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1. Corbin Limited Garment Factory; West Edge Factory, A.F. Thomson Manufacturing

Known by many as the West Edge Factory, this structure was originally built in 1930 by A.F. Thomson Manufacturing and housed production for the stove manufacturing company until the 1960s. A clothing manufacturer, Corbin Limited, purchased the building after A.F. Thompson vacated the building. Corbin operated out of the factory until 2002. Corbin was the last manufacturing company to utilize the building, and it sat vacant until 2014 when Coalfield Development saved the 96,000 square foot factory from demolition with intent to restore the space as a job training and workforce development center, and a hub for local artists. Today, the space is known as the West Edge Factory and includes a solar installation training facility, a 7,000 square foot woodshop, and an organic farming operation. Future renovations will include a Black box theater, artist studios, and a museum and interpretive center honoring the stories of former Corbin Ltd. employees, most of whom were women.

2. Hartzell Handle Company (1896 to circa 1913)

The Hartzell Handle factory was one of the first major industries in Central City. It was built around 1896 by brothers Irvin and Enos Hartzell, who owned or operated a number of handle factories, lumber mills, and other business across the region. This factory was located just south of Washington Avenue and between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets. The Hartzell Handle Company specialized in producing hickory wood handles for axes, hatchets, spades, and other tools. It thrived thanks to its close proximity to other major industries, railroads, rivers, and a steady supply of timber from the forests of West Virginia. The exact fate of the factory is unclear but it closed sometime after 1913 and was later demolished. The dwindling supply of hickory timber in West Virginia is cited as the primary reason for its demise.

3. D. E. Abbott & Co.

D. E. Abbott & Co. was one of the oldest and longest-lasting industries in the Central City neighborhood of Huntington. It began in 1890 as Addison Thompson and Associates, a glass factory that produced tableware. In 1898 it was acquired by D. E. Abbott (1856-1942), a businessman and photographer, who created a business selling portraits, picture frames, and moldings. The company flourished, and at one point it was the second-largest employer in Huntington. The company scaled back its operations in 1919 but remained open until 1991. For a number of years afterwards the facility was home to the J. Taylor Auto Collection, a private automobile museum. The original office building still stands today, although it is currently unoccupied.

4. Rainbow Art Glass Company (1942-1973); Rainbow-Viking Glass Company (1973-1983)

From the late nineteenth century and through much of the twentieth century, glass manufacture was one of West Virginia’s and the Ohio Valley’s most important industries. Huntington was once home to several glass factories itself, including Rainbow Art Glass Company (later Rainbow-Viking Glass). The company was founded in New York by Henry P. Manus and J. Goudaker in 1940, but relocated to Huntington two years later. Originally, the company decorated glassware that it purchased from other companies, before it began manufacturing its own colorful, hand-blown glass in 1954. In 1973, Rainbow Art Glass was purchased by Viking Glass, which began in 1901 as the New Martinsville Glass Manufacturing Company. When the Rainbow-Viking Glass factory and adjacent retail shop were destroyed by fire in 1983, the company decided not to rebuild the plant. Viking Glass continued manufacturing glass from its New Martinsville facility until 1998, when rising production costs and foreign competition caused the company to shut down.

5. Huntington Tumbler Company (1891-1932)

The Huntington Tumbler Company was one of the earliest glass factories to exist in the area. It opened as the West Virginia Flint Bottle Company around 1891 along with the nearby Central City Window Glass Company, which was owned by the same investors. It was acquired by the Zihlman family in 1901, who renamed the company and expanded its range of products. Huntington Tumbler became known for making ornate, high quality glass pieces such as tumblers, stemware, vases, and candlesticks. Its glassware was sold both locally and internationally, with products exported to places such as Latin America and Europe. The economic downturn caused by the Great Depression forced the business to close in 1932. The factory was demolished in the 1940s, leaving no physical remnants.

6. Fesenmeier Brewery (1934-1972)

This location was home to the leading brewery in Huntington during the 20th century. Founded as the American Brewing Company prior to the Yost Law which made West Virginia a dry state in 1914, this facilty converted from producing beer to processing meat. On December 5, 1933, Fesenmeier Brewing Company again began producing beer at this location. The brewery spanned an entire city block in Old Central City until it ceased operation in 1972 and was later demolished in order to make room for the current shopping center.

7. Central City Bung Company (1894-1918)

One of the earliest industries to be established in the region, the Central City Bung Company was located here and operated from 1894 to 1918. John C. Hale opened the facility in 1894 after a previous bung factory he was involved with in Wirt County was destroyed in a fire. The factory was located on the southwest corner of Monroe Avenue and Fourteenth Street West. The company produced only one product: wooden plugs used for sealing whiskey barrels known as bungs. The niche market for bungs made the company one of the largest suppliers of the product in the world. The Central City company produced and shipped bungs that were used to plug barrels in Europe and Asia. At one point Central City was nicknamed the "Bung Capital of the World" thanks to this business. The rise of the Temperance movement during the 1910s saw the demand for whiskey barrels and bungs, to fall dramatically. The factory closed in 1918 and the building was demolished around 1930.

8. Duncan Box & Lumber Co. (1895-2015)

The Duncan Box & Lumber Company was one of the earliest businesses in what is now Old Central City. The company was founded around 1895 and lasted longer than nearly every Huntington firm. The business specialized in manufacturing wood boxes, crates, and pallets for breweries, the military, and customers who shipped their goods from the growing river and railroad town. In later years, the company was known for custom millwork, cabinetry, lumber, and hardware supplies. Duncan Box outlasted other local companies and became one of the last surviving industries from the days of Central City. For most of its history, the company was owned and operated by the Duncan family. In 2012 the family sold the business to another local family who hoped they might reverse the trend that saw the closure of several family-owned hardware stores. This proved unsuccessful, however, and Duncan Box closed in 2015 after 120 years of operation.

9. Charles Boldt Bottle Factory (1914-1919); Owens-Illinois Glass Factory (1919-1993)

For almost seventy-five years, a large tract of land on Huntington’s south side was home to a glass manufacturing factory. The plant was first built in 1914 by Charles Boldt, who founded the Charles Boldt Glass Company in Muncie, Indiana, in 1900. Boldt’s factory primarily manufactured liquor bottles and flasks, but it soon entered a decline due to the Prohibition movement. In 1919, the factory was purchased by Michael Owens, owner of the Owens Bottle Company and inventor of a bottle-making machine that had revolutionized the glass industry. In 1929, the Owens Bottle Company merged with the Illinois Glass Company to form the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. Despite the challenges of Prohibition and the Great Depression, Owens-Illinois became a giant of the glass industry and produced millions of bottles at its Huntington plant. During the latter half of the twentieth century, however, production declined as the plastics industry boomed, leading Owens-Illinois to close its Huntington plant in 1993. Following the closure, the city renamed the facility the Huntington Industrial Center and recruited new industries to occupy the plant, including Level 1 Fasteners, which makes high-quality fasteners for the military and NASA.

10. Houdaille Industries (1947-1980)

Huntington was once the site of the country’s largest automobile bumper factory, Houdaille Industries. The company’s roots trace back to France's Maurice Houdaille who invented a rotary shock absorber for automobiles. An American corporation bought the name and the rights to Houdaille’s inventions and became the country’s premier manufacturer of shock absorbers by the 1930s. In 1946, the company purchased a factory building in Huntington, which had been built by the American Thermos Bottle Company in 1924. Houdaille Industries’ Huntington plant manufactured over three million metal bumpers annually and shipped to auto assembly plants in the United States and abroad. During the late 1970s, however, the metal bumper industry declined due to federal auto safety requirements and fuel-economy standards, causing the Huntington plant to shut down in 1980. In recent years, the plant has drawn controversy due to allegations that its employees were exposed to radioactive nickel. Today, the former bumper factory is the site of Koppers Inc., a railroad equipment supplier.

11. The Sylvania Plant

Constructed with the financial backing of the U.S. Navy at the start of World War II, this building was a wartime factory staffed largely by women known today as "Rosie The Riveters." Huntington's Sylvania Plant produced miniature electronic tubes used within the fuses of artillery and antiaircraft shells. Workers were given a cover story about the purpose of the work owing to the classified nature of their work which was not made public until long after the plant had closed. The plant employed 3, 700 workers, mostly women, at its peak. Sylvania continued to use the building until 1957, and the facility sat vacant for some time before being repurposed. Today, this building is home to the Department of Motor Vehicles for the city of Huntington.

12. Gwinn Brothers Milling Company (1889-1962)

Located along Second Avenue (now Veterans Memorial Boulevard) between Ninth and Eleventh Streets, the Gwinn Brothers Milling Company was a fixture of downtown Huntington for over seventy years. Founded in 1889 by brothers O.E. and W.W. Gwinn, the mill grew into a successful business that produced hundreds of barrels of flour and cornmeal and hundreds of tons of animal feed each day. The youngest Gwinn brother, D.B. Gwinn, gradually took on a greater role in the company and went on to succeed W.W. Gwinn as company president in 1915. Despite undergoing several renovations and expansions over the years, the business was struggling to make ends meet by the end of the Second World War. James A. Gwinn took over after D.B. Gwinn passed away in 1951, and ran the company until his own death in 1961. At that point, the remaining members of the family sold their majority interest and dissolved the company. Martha White Mills briefly took over operations of the grain elevator and flour mill in 1964, but in 1970 the mill was demolished as part of Huntington’s downtown urban renewal project.

13. Stanard Dry Goods (1921-1930) / Huntington Dress Factory (1930s-1983) / Jean Dean Public Safety Building (1999-)

This building, located at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and Tenth Street, was the longtime home of a series of garment factories. The five-story warehouse was originally built in 1921 by Oscar Lee Stanard of the O.L. Stanard Dry Goods Company, a wholesale dry goods and merchant house. After Stanard Dry Goods closed during the early 1930s, the building was converted into a dress factory. Over the years, the factory changed ownership and names several times, becoming known as the Reliance Dress Factory, the Huntington Manufacturing Company, and Huntington Industries. While the factory was producing nearly two hundred thousand dresses in 1960, business had declined by the early 1980s. After the factory closed in 1983, the building sat vacant until 1998, when it was acquired by the city of Huntington and remodeled into the Jean Dean Public Safety Building. The building currently houses the J. Seaton Taylor Municipal Court and other facilities used by the Huntington Police Department.

14. Peerless Overall Company / Blue Jay Manufacturing Company (1910s-1948)

Blue Jay Manufacturing Company, originally known as the Peerless Overall Company, once occupied a large brick warehouse on the southeast corner of Eighth Avenue and Fifteenth Street in downtown Huntington. The company was established around 1911 by Charles W. Watts, one of early Huntington's most successful businessmen. Watts was president of the Watts, Ritter & Company, director of the First National Bank of Huntington, and vice president of the Empire Furniture Company. Peerless Overall Company, which was renamed Blue Jay around 1918, made overalls, work pants, and shirts, which were then distributed by Watts, Ritter & Co. The company grew during the 1920s, employing over one hundred workers, most of them women. During World War II, Blue Jay made uniforms for the U.S. Army. In 1948, Blue Jay was sold to Blue Ridge Manufacturing, which produced overalls at the warehouse until 1954. After briefly sitting vacant, the former overall factory was used by the Star Furniture Company as a storage warehouse until the 1970s. Today, the historic building houses an indoor self-storage facility.

15. Huntington China Company (1904-1907); H.R. Wyllie China Company (1907 - 1930s)

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pottery manufacturing was a major industry in West Virginia. In Huntington, the corner of Sixteenth Street (now Hal Greer Boulevard) and Tenth Avenue was home to a china factory from 1904 to the mid-1930s. The facility was opened as The Huntington China Company by potters W.J. Harvey and George Fowler, but the men soon encountered financial difficulties and were forced to sell their factory in 1907. The building was then purchased by Harry R. Wyllie, who renamed the plant after himself. For the next thirty years, the H.R. Wyllie China Company manufactured semi-porcelain tableware for the home as well as thick porcelain for hotel use. After Wyllie passed away in 1931, his widow continued to operate the plant for a few years before it was closed and demolished to make way for the Northcott Court public housing complex in 1940. Today, although the factory has been closed for decades, Wyllie porcelain can still be found in antique shops and online.

16. Le John Manufacturing Company (1947-1958)

This brick building at 111 Twenty-Second Street was once home to Le John Manufacturing Company, a maker of electrical products best known for its tabletop fans. Le John was established in Huntington in 1947 by Sam Politano, Herbert Caldwell, and Carl Edmonds. Along with electric fans, the company manufactured small household appliances like hairdryers and heaters, and they also contracted with the government to offer a range of electrical equipment. Le John was a successful business in its early years, but industry consolidation in manufacturing made it difficult for local factories to compete with industry leaders by the late 1950s. In 1957, the company was purchased by Dumont-Airplane and Marine Instruments of Clearfield, Pennsylvania. The Huntington plant closed and Le John moved to Clearfield the following year, and the company declared bankruptcy soon after. Today, Le John fans are popular among antique fan collectors, and many are still in use. The long-vacant Le John factory may eventually be redeveloped as part of a plan to revitalize Huntington’s Highlawn neighborhood.

17. Ensign Manufacturing Company (1872-1899); ACF Industries (1899-2010s)

Established in 1872 by William Barnum, Ely Ensign, and Collis P. Huntington, Ensign Manufacturing Company was one of Huntington’s earliest industries. The factory initially produced iron parts such as railroad car wheels, before it began to manufacture wooden freight cars in the early 1880s. By 1895, the company was manufacturing more than four thousand cars per year and selling much of its inventory to the Chesapeake and Ohio, Southern Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Ely Ensign became a prominent local figure in early Huntington, serving as a longtime City Council member and mayor in 1896. In 1899, Ensign Manufacturing Company became one of thirteen car builders consolidated into the American Car & Foundry Company (ACF). After the merger, freight car production continued at the former Ensign plant, which produced its first all-steel cars in 1905 and began manufacturing Center-Flow hopper cars from the 1960s on. By the early 2000s, however, business had slowed and most of the plant’s workers had been let go. The factory sat mostly idle for several years, as plans were developed to remake that area into the Huntington Brownfields Innovation Zone. The Huntington Municipal Development Authority agreed to purchase the ACF Industries complex in June 2019.

18. Standard Ultramarine & Color Company (1912-1964)

Located on the north side of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Fourth Street, Standard Ultramarine & Color Company was once one of Huntington’s largest industrial plants. The company was founded by Omar T. Frick in 1909 and was originally based in Tiffin, Ohio. In response to a damaging flood and Ohio’s high natural gas prices, Frick and his business partner, French engineer Henri Dourif, moved their company to Huntington in 1912. There, Standard Ultramarine rapidly grew from a modest half-acre facility into a sprawling twenty-acre plant that employed over five hundred people and produced a wide range of pigments. After Frick passed away in 1949, Dourif served as president of Standard Ultramarine until his retirement in 1964. Over the following years, the Standard Ultramarine plant changed hands several times, until Flint Group Pigments announced that the facility would be shut down in 2017. The property was purchased by the Huntington Municipal Development Authority in 2018 and sold to Marshall University in 2019. The former Standard Ultramarine plant is now the site of the future Thundering Herd baseball stadium, which is scheduled for completion in 2021.

19. Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company (1912-1970s)

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, West Virginia was a major contributor to the American tobacco industry. While the closest market to Huntington was located in Kentucky for many years, a site was eventually chosen between 26th and 27th Streets and First Avenue. The Warehouse Land Company purchased the land under the American Tobacco Company and established auction warehouses there in 1910, which were then leased to the Huntington Tobacco Warehouse Company. In 1912, the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company purchased a section of property along 27th Street and established a cigarette factory. The four-story, red brick, Commercial style warehouse building was built in 1917, and an addition was installed in 1920 following increases in demand. Liggett & Myers, along with other companies and warehouses in Huntington’s tobacco district, prospered as the tobacco industry peaked in the mid-1920s. The factory remained in business for further decades, while the Huntington Tobacco Warehouse operated until 1997. The former Liggett & Myers factory was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

20. Buffington Mill (1856-1861)

Built in 1856, the Buffington Mill was once the largest mill on the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. The mill ground wheat into flour and featured a three-story structure that processed and packaged the flour and then sent it down a runway to awaiting vessels on the Ohio River. In the years when Buffington Mill was in operation, Guyandotte was a bustling port with over forty businesses. During the Civil War, the village was also the site of a Union recruiting post that was attacked by Confederate forces on November 10, 1861. The following day, fresh Union troops arrived and burned most of the village - including Buffington Mill - in response to the rumored collaboration between the Confederates and local residents. Although it was never rebuilt, the Buffington Mill’s brick smokestack survived the fire. The smokestack remained standing in Guyandotte, even as the village was incorporated into Huntington in 1911. The aging structure was demolished to make way for an apartment complex sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

This Tour is a Thematic Tour or Heritage Trail.

Former Factories of Huntington Tour

Created by Emma Satterfield on July 30th 2020, 3:14:47 pm.

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Description

From its founding in 1871 to the present day, factories have been a crucial part of the economy of Huntington, West Virginia. While several industries remain active in the area, this tour guides visitors to factories and other industrial sites that are no longer in operation today. These former factories manufactured a wide range of products, including glass, automobile parts, clothing, and chemicals, among others. Although these sites have been demolished or repurposed over the years, they remain an important part of Huntington’s industrial legacy.

Entries on This Tour

Former Factories of Huntington Tour

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