A Family Name In Glass

When Richard Blenko began working for his family’s business, Blenko Glass Co., back in 1976, he knew he wanted to preserve the history and spirit of glassmaking that had been in his family since his great-grandfather, William John Blenko, founded the company in Milton, W.Va., (pop. 2,206) in 1921.

“I was seeing the demise of the handmade glass industry,” recalls Richard, 50, now the company’s president. “I thought that if I could preserve the history it would be an important direction in life.”

Working with filmmaker Deborah Novak, who has directed several documentary films about Blenko glass, Richard has begun to realize his dream. Through numerous showings of Novak’s documentaries on PBS affiliate stations throughout the country, the company has experienced a revival among the world of glass collectors, as well as from everyday folk who just love beautiful and unique glass.

“People keep rediscovering Blenko glass,” Richard says. “It’s a piece of history. In a very technological world, this (glass) is made the same as it was 500 years ago. The men who work here—their skill and dedication—there’s nothing like that in America.”

William John Blenko, founder of Blenko Glass Co., brought his craft from England to America in 1893. After several failed businesses and a trip to England and back, he opened the current Blenko factory in Milton in 1921, and it has remained in the family ever since.

Thanks to the plentiful natural gas supply in the West Virginia hills, glass factories once dotted the landscape. Today, however, Blenko Glass Co. is one of only nine glass factories left in the state.

Company CEO William Blenko Jr.—Richard’s father—grew up watching glassmakers blow molten glass into cherry wood molds, and he has always had a fascination with the process.

“It fascinated me; it still does,” says Blenko, 82. “You see this liquid ball come out. It’s fluid, and then you see it take shape in front of your eyes.

“There’s something new all the time,” he adds. “It’s not like routine manufacturing work. Handmade glass is unique. No two pieces are exactly alike.”

The basic recipe for Blenko glass begins with raw materials—a mixture of sand, soda ash, limestone, borax, nitrogen and feldspar. These are mixed with various metals to produce certain colors—cobalt for blue, for instance, and manganese for purple. This mixture is then placed into an oven, heated to about 2,600 degrees, and cooked for 24 hours. The mixture is then cooled to a working temperature of 2,000 to 2,300 degrees, when it is ready to be blown and shaped.

Throughout its long history, Blenko Glass Co. has earned a reputation for producing unusual and valuable handmade and hand-blown glass in an array of rich colors—both architectural glass, such as that used in stained-glass windows, and decorative glass, such as vases and bowls. Blenko glass has found its way into some famous hands, including the Rockefeller family, Cary Grant, and Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan. Its glass blocks can be found in places like the Rainbow Room in New York’s Rockefeller Center, and its sheet glass is featured in a variety of well-known stained glass windows, including one in the Washington National Cathedral. At one time, Blenko also produced glass trophies for the Country Music Association.

Despite its national and international reputation, however, the heart of the Blenko Glass Co. remains its sense of family. Indeed, this sense of family applies not just to the Blenkos, but also to many of the workers, who themselves are part of a glassmaking tradition that stretches back several generations.

“A lot of the guys who work here, their dads worked here,” says Don Lemley, who has worked for the company for 15 years and remembers as a child watching his grandfather blowing sheet glass for Blenko. “It’s pretty much a family business.”

Vivian Wagner is a freelance writer in New Concord, Ohio.

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