Kentucky Glass Plant

The Kentucky Glass Plant (also known as Lexington Glass Division) was opened in the town of Lexington (KY) in 1946 to provide extra capacity for GE's rapidly expanding business of sealed beam automotive headlamps. The pressed glass reflectors and lenses for those had previously all been produced at the company's Mahoning Glass Works at Niles (OH), and the immediate post-war period saw a very rapid growth of that business. Kentucky Glass was expanded again in 1952, reaching 100 workers when it became the company's third Ribbon Bulb plant for the production of ordinary incandescent lamp shells. This was a role which became its sole activity once the skyrocketing demand for pressed glass ware saw that move again in 1957 to the newly-built Somerset Glass Plant.

The factory excelled as being one of the highest capacity ribbon bulb plants in the world. However, when changing government regulations on energy efficiency of lamps forced GE to close its principal incandescent plant at Winchester (VA) in 2010, the glassworks lost its primary customer which had consumed more than two million of its glass bulb shells per day. It was announced on 23rd July 2009 that the glassworks would be closed, which followed in late July 2010 with the loss of 114 jobs. The buildings were completely removed by GE and reverted to green fields, on which the new headquarters of the nearby Lextran bus company was built in 2013.