The Hagley Vault

This week's Hagley Vault is visiting Ohio to take a look at the Austin Powder Company's mills under construction in Glenwillow, Cuyahoga County, on the southern end of Solon, Ohio.

The company, now the oldest manufacturing enterprise in the Cleveland area, produces industrial explosives and detonators, as well as blasting services. But back when it was founded in 1833 by brothers Daniel Hudson Austin (1804-1878), Alvin Austin (1806-1872), Cyrus Austin (1809-1842), Lorenzo Buchard Austin (1812-1886), and Linus Austin (1817-1887), it produced black powder explosives.

The brothers had traveled from Wilmington, Vermont in search of a suitable place to build their mill before settling near Akron, Ohio, where they began production in 1833. By 1891, the company had expanded enough that it had purchased the Cleveland Powder Company, closed its original, smaller mill, relocated to the new plant at southern edge of Cleveland, and was…Read more...