1. 1896 Denver city directory reads: "Robert Good Jr. Manager, manufacturer of glassware & all kinds of bottles. Office and Glass Works - 143 So. 11th St."

2. 1897 - The name was changed to Valverde Glass Works. Robert Good's brother, Thomas Good, became bookkeeper for the company.

3. 1898 - Company moved to Alaska St. between So. 5th & So. 6th Ave. Thomas Good left the company this year.

4. 1899 - Fire destroyed one main warehouse on Tuesday June 27, 1899. Apparently at this time the company changed hands, or a new organization was started with Frank R. Ashley as president and F. L. Galigher general manager.

The September 27, 1899 Denver Times has the following article:
"The Western Flint Glass Co. Prominent among the new industries is the works of the Western Flint Glass Company. The company is a strong one, composed of local capitalists, who have spared neither time nor expense in erecting one of the most complete glass plants in the west. Every detail has been studied and the most improved and modern machinery has been installed for the production of all kinds of flint green and amber bottles and glass containers. The pressed ware department is complete for the manufacture of all kinds of telegraph, telephone and electric light insulators.

"It is a demonstrated fact that Colorado affords the raw materials, composing this most important branch of the arts, and with the modern plant as adopted by the Western Flint Glass Company, there cannot be any doubts as to their output being fully up to standard.

"The large furnaces will be lighted on Monday next. It will then, as a home industry, and bearing no allegiance to any trust or combine launch its new venture in the business world. We bespeak for it a large patronage."

(Opening "Monday next" would be Oct. 1, 1899. This was too late to be listed in the 1899 city directory.)

5. 1900 - On Feb. 22, 1900 all workers of Western Flint Glass Co. went on strike for a pay increase of twenty-five cents so they would receive a dollar a day.

Denver Times, May 25, 1902

WHERE IT'S SO HOT MEN CAN WORK ONLY TEN MINUTES
Denver's Glass Factory, Which Is Growing
--- Employs 150 Men and Uses Fine Sand From Platte Canon.

Denver has a glass factory which does a monthly business or $10,000. It is located at South Eighth and Bayaud Streets, and 150 men and boys are on the payroll. The Western Glass Manufacturing Company, composed largely of Denver men, runs the plant and since its acquisition of the property a year ago, business has increased 250 per cent.

Eleven different kinds of glassware are made for the breweries, pickle houses, hotels and saloons, not only in Denver, but throughout Colorado and the West. Eleven furnaces are required to melt the material for molding the glass. Denver, has no industry that embodies more interesting features.

The present company succeeded the Western Flint Glass Manufacturing company in November, 1901, and during the past several months extensive improvements have been made to meet the demands of a ready market in Denver and the West. Hitherto, Pittsburg and Alton factories have monopolized the industry of glass manufacture, but the chamber of commerce reports the Denver institution as being in every respect an excellent competitor, which has promise of gaining markets in every part of the United States, and of ultimately supplying Mexico and South America with glasses and bottles. The operations of the company index the magnitude of other industries throughout the West which have use for glassware. The entire daily product amounts to several carloads of glasses and bottles, used mostly in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Montana.

Michael Nester, formerly of the Alton Glass works, a man of many years' experience. In the business is manager for the company, and through his efforts the plant has been brought to its present State of efficiency.

The sand used In the manufacture of the glass is shipped from Platte Canon, twenty-five miles from Denver. This sand, which is of a peculiarly line and transparent quality, is fluxed prior to melting, with soda ash, most of which comes from Michigan. The flux is melted by gas flame in fireclay furnaces, and so intense is the heat that the men who feed the furnaces can only work in ten-minute shifts each hour.

There are eleven expert glass blowers employed by the company. It appears simple enough to thrust a long steel tube into the furnaces and, draw out a ball of molten glass, but it requires the utmost skill to keep it on the end of the tube and to roll It oil sandstone Into a shape conforming to the mold. When the material is dropped into the mold it is blown through the tube into the shape desired. The molded glass is then introduced into a series of annealing furnaces and, paradoxical as it seems, the glass is cooled in these ovens.

At present the company is making thousands of Insulators for the telegraph and telephone companies throughout the West, but It has molds for nearly every description of a bottle and the home market is a profitable field.

The officers of the company are Frank Ashley, president, Harvey C. James, John H. Porter, S. F. Palmer, Gerald Hughes, Merritt Gano and Michael Nester, directors.

From a very faded Denver Times dated sometime in 1900 was an article concerning the types of glassware produced by the W. F. G. Co. It stated that the company had twelve different style molds for producing the insulators. If more than four were used, where are the insulators hiding?

Besides W. F. G. Co. the 1900 city directory lists a "Western Chemical Co., mfrs sulphuric acid, nitric and muriatic acids, blue vitriol, etc., E. M. Ashley pres., Frank R. Ashley secy. and treas., office and works S. 7th Cor. Bayaud." This is the same address as W. F. G. Co. in Valverde along the banks of the South Platte River in Southwest Denver.

6. 1901 - Sometime before the city directory was published this year the reorganization took place. Mr. Galigher, the W. F. G. Co. general manager, has left, with M. W. Gand becoming business manager and M. Nester factory manager. The Denver city directory continues to list W. G. M. Co. through 1909 but not in the 1910 issue. In 1905 the address changed to So. 8th and West Bayaud St.

The first telegraph line in Colorado to reach Denver was the Pacific - Overland Telegraph from Julesburg, Colo. It was completed in 1863.