Between Darkness & Light | Consumer’s Glass – Hamilton Works

My history with Consumer’s Glass starts somewhere other than Hamilton, but rather my hometown of Milton. One of the earliest abandoned locations I ‘discovered’ after getting a hot tip was the former Milton plant, but that was among the final Consumer’s Glass plants constructed and among the first to be torn down. The Milton works, completed in the late 1970s and became operational in 1980, was a local landmark, the tall silos standing over a small industrial section and easily seen when heading east on the 401 approaching Highway 25. The Hamilton works, however, were far more interesting, not only larger but older, much older than I initially thought, even back when I was first exploring the place.

Hamilton’s involvement in Canada’s glassmaking industry starts with the medical industry. Three druggists, John Weiner, Lyman Moor, and George Rutherford, formed a wholesale patient medicine firm, Winer, Moore & Co, in 1857. However, they faced a crucial shortfall in the availability of inexpensive bottles. So the men hired Nathan Gatchell, a former partner in the Lancaster Glass Works in New York and formed the Hamilton Glass Works in 1864. A small glass production factory opened on James Street North between Picton and McCaulay. Glass production was entirely hands-on; raw materials were shovelled into furnaces and then hand-blown by highly skilled workers. Many of the employees were of German origin, and many of the world’s great glassmakers were from Germany. The Canadian glassmaking industry got a boost in 1879 when Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie passed a series of protectionist measures putting tariffs on several imports to help boost the Canadian sector and manufacturing, among them glass. By 1880, the Hamilton Glass Works, now Hamilton Glass Co., occupied an entire city block between James Street and Hughson (today where the James Street North Baptist Church sits). Two furnaces and several workshops produced ink bottles, medicine bottles, glass targets, telegraph insulators and other bottles. The Hamilton works were not the only game in town. The city had become Canada’s glassmaking capital, and the Hamilton Works wanted to diversify by purchasing the competition. The Burlington Glass Works, located at what is today Bay View Park, was initially founded in 1874, became a part of the Hamilton Glass Co in 1885 and used flint glass. Both plants were picked up by Diamond Glass Co (founded in Montreal as Excelsior Glass in 1879) in 1891 but continued to operate under their original name. The decade would prove troublesome. It started in 1892 when the Burlington factory burned down. In 1893, a former manager left the company, founding the Toronto Glass Co. and taking some of the workforce and much of the machinery with them. The mass migration forced the Hamilton works to temporarily shutter. At the same time, Diamond attempted to get some of the equipment back, which they did in 1899 by purchasing the Toronto Glass Co. Diamond Glass Co. reorganised in 1902 as the Diamond Flint Glass Co. and resumed operations in Hamilton in 1906. Production at James Street continued for six years before the plant burned down.

Diamond Flint was already in the process of merging with Sydenham Glass Works when the Hamilton Works burned down, and it gave them a chance to construct a larger plant on Chapelle Street. The new Dominion Glass Co. opened in 1914. Glass production continued using the traditional hand-blown methods; it wasn’t until 1920 that some level of automation started to make the process quicker and less reliant on skilled glass makers. Around this time, the original James Street plant was cleaned up and demolished. Further improvements to the Chapelle plant came in the 1940s, but the largest expansion came in 1955. The 1955 expansion tore down much of the original 1914 section to add modern furnaces and glass-making technology to better serve the growing market, and the Hamilton Works could output twenty-two million bottles per year. However, the post-war era saw many labour disputes, which worsened at Dominion Glass. The first hit came in 1969 with the rumour that a ban on non-returnable glass bottles was dropping. The real hit came when 700 workers were laid off during a shortage in soda and ash. Disgruntled employees would take matters in hand, and in 1975, one employee set three fires at the Hamilton Plant. Even a 1976 restructuring and rebranding to DOMGLASS did not improve temperament. A significant leak resulted in a spill of 450 tonnes of molten glass, then 1984 a 55-tonne leak of molten glass in 1985. Both cases resulted in severe damage, which was repaired, but with tampering, my employees continued to show serious problems. DOMGLASS became a part of Consumer’s Glass (founded in Montreal in 1917) in 1986. Consumer’s Glass had been making headway in Ontario, building a site in Milton, Ontario, in 1980 and acquiring another plant in Brampton. But Hamilton was among the oldest and smallest of all their holdings, and operations in glass-making wound down and shut down in 1997. Warehouse and distribution continued at Chapelle Street until Owen’s Illinois acquired Consumers Glass in 2001, which mothballed the plant. The site saw limited use as a movie set for the 2008 version of The Incredible Hulk (the second film in the modern MCU). In 2014, in the leadup to the PanAm Games, the City of Hamilton purchased the site. It began to investigate the construction of a park and parking. The factory section was torn down that same year, but no other moves were made through 2015 as construction stalled. The remaining buildings were demolished in 2021, with construction aimed to start this year, pending funding and approvals.

Like many Hamilton locations, Consumer’s Glass was a’ secret location’ guarded secret among the local exploration community and those in the trusted circles. It was so secret that we were quickly ushered inside on the first visit without even catching a glance of any signage. Although inside, there was a lot of mention of DOMGLASS. I went back, looking through my images to try and piece together how many times I visited the Hamilton Works. Comparing all the dates, it lines up on two separate visits, one in 2007 during the filming of the Incredible Hulk and then in 2008 after the fact. I didn’t know the name until the 2008 visit when we entered a different entrance. While the location was small compared to other industrial locations, it had much to offer an explorer, from the massive furnace area to the warehouses and office spaces, plus the amount left over. It does not help that the ownership and security were maintained after the closure of the manufacturing portion of the plant in 1997. While I am trying to remember any specific details about the two trips. Good in the sense that nothing wrong happened, and there was never a close shave. The bad thing is that both of those trips blur together. I have also sorted all the images in the Flickr album to be closer to how the plant is laid out. However, a couple of things stand out. The first was the age of some of the warehouses and how everything seemed to be tacked on, moving from an older portion to a newer section. Then, there was the immensity of the manufacturing plant. At the same time, Milton’s works were more significant than Hamilton’s, and they were nothing compared to Hamilton’s, both in size and photographic possibilities. Massive furnaces, catwalks, pipes, and everything are all left in place. Some more exciting things we found were several cases of original bottles that never left the plant, drawings and tables showing the tolerances to which bottles were made. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a factory in Hamilton without a wall covered in Sunshine Girls.

My photography here is an interesting in-between phase, a moment of transition from what was to what will be. It sounds pretentious, but it’s the only thing I could come up with for this post. There’s a mix of almost everything from working with my original SLR, the D70s, and my D300; there are glimpses of my old style of composition with the new style of leading lines and flat compositions. Nothing is entirely concrete, and everything in the Flickr album is jumbled. You can see a specific rushed nature to these, but looking back now, that was what we had to do with these locations. See, Hamilton’s explorer community held locations like this close to their chest, trusting only a select group with the details. Except there was a bit of leak where security would often know exactly what we were up to. Given that even during the two trips I took, there is a good chance the location was partially active. It’s not that I’m unhappy with my results; I know I could have done better. Most of those images concern the factory section; I wish I had captured more from this area. And as cliche as it sounds, more on black & white (film or converted digital). But that being said, the film shots (as few as there are) represent the only time I shot a roll of Fujifilm Pro 160S. The roll split between non-exploration shots in downtown Milton, a couple frames at Firestone, and the rest at Consumer’s Glass.

For everything that Consumer’s Glass was, I regret not visiting more than I did. Still, it was always a variable whether you could get in, like many Hamilton locations. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, I want more images from the factory section. But sadly, it is now long gone, and I’m okay with the photos I have. The real shame is that this land was supposed to be long converted into a public park, something this part of Hamilton sorely needs. Public green space and gathering space make neighbourhoods more vibrant, and the area, being depressed as it is, would need something to rally around. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the park’s construction will have started. I never posted my photos from Milton’s Consumer Glass plant but they’re still up on UER you can check them out in the following galleries: my first trip, the night crawl event, a last look, and the demolition aftermath over on UER. And of course, the entire Hamilton album is on Flickr.