The Corning Glass Works was established in 1875 by Amory Houghton, Sr., in Corning, New York. Prior to this, the company was the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company in Brooklyn, New York. Upon its arrival at Corning in 1868 it was called the Corning Flint Glass Company. The company moved to Corning because of the fuel and the transportation available there. They manufactured fine tableware and decorative glass. By 1875 they had expanded to railway signal lenses, lantern globes, thermometer tubing and pharmaceutical glassware. 

Research was constantly being done at the Glass Works, and the notebooks of Amory Houghton, Jr. prove this. In 1877 Corning, with the help of a Cornell physicist, worked on the design of better railway signal lens. They designed the lens so the focusing ridges were now on the inside, reducing dirt and snow collection and improving the intensity and the focus of the lamps 

In 1880 Corning helped achieve a standard color system for the signal lamps. Prior to this, there were as many as thirty-two different shades of green, which proved confusing in stormy or foggy weather. Working with studies of color perception, the correct signal colors could be established. Through laboratory and field research carried on at Yale University and after 1904 at Corning Glass Works, the ideal signal colors were found to be red, yellow and green. Glasses were selected to reproduce the hues precisely. In 1908 the Railway Signal Association adopted Corning's colors as standard. 

By this time Corning had an established research laboratory and was working on producing a glass that could withstand sudden temperature changes. After four years, two of Corning's chemists, Eugene Sullivan and William Taylor, found their glass that combined heat resistance with chemical stability. In 1912 Corning began producing lantern globes and battery jars made of the new glass under the trademark of NONEX. This same NONEX glass soon after with further investigation became the model for Corning's baking ware. With some improvements still, Corning came out with their ovenware in 1915 with the PYREX trademark. 

It was of immense importance, because the PYREX ovenware was impervious to food acids released in cooking. The same resistance to chemical attack later put PYREX brand piping into chemical and food processing firms. Glasses containing boric acid were also found to have excellent electrical insulation and were widely used in Corning's production of telephone and power line insulators 

This borosilicate glass is heat-shock resistant. PYREX is the trade name for this type of glass. PYREX contains 80 per cent silica, 4 per cent alkali, 2 per cent alumina, and 13 per cent boric oxide. It is over three times as heat-shock resistant as soda lime glass, and was used extensively for Corning's bakingware and electrical insulators. 

The Corning Glass Works is located in Corning, New York, on the Chemung River. It is sometimes referred to as the "Crystal City". The Corning Glass Center was opened in 1950, containing exhibits of the history of glass.