Williamstown: Where Carnival Glass Was Born

Williamstown, West Virginia, across the Ohio River from Marietta, has one of the more specific claims to fame in American decorative arts: it is where carnival glass was invented. The Fenton Art Glass Company relocated from Martins Ferry, Ohio, and built a factory here in nineteen oh six. Within a few years Fenton developed iridescent pressed glass, a cheaper alternative to Tiffany's expensive art glass that shimmered with rainbow colors.

Carnival operators bought it by the crate to give away as prizes, which is where the name came from. Fenton operated in Williamstown for over a century, finally ending its traditional glassmaking in twenty eleven. The town's other glass connection is the Fenton facility itself, which has since become a museum.

Williamstown was formally incorporated in nineteen twenty-one, though it existed as a community much earlier, platted in the eighteen twenties and named for Isaac Williams, who settled the land in seventeen eighty-seven.