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Location DB > United States > West Virginia > Moundsville > Fostoria Glass Plant > Oherian, Seicer, and Wilson

Story Info
Mon, Apr 25th, 2005
posted by seicer
Oherian, Seicer, and Wilson

Oherian and myself departed from Huntington around 8:30 AM after getting a quick drink at McDonald's. It was a dreary, gray day -- perfect for urban exploring as Jay stated, but I had my reservations. As it turned out, it would be perfect, atmospheric wise, and for getting in undetected.

The trip to the former factory totalled approximately 4 hours. We stopped to eat lunch at a Kentucky Fried Chicken/Taco Bell and I had to buy film at a CVS for my film camera, which ironically I did not use the entire trip.

After eating, Oherian and I scouted for about half an hour around the Fostoria Glass factory. Looking at the scouting photographs that Oherian took a while back, I thought that this would be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill "get in and get out" exploration and that there would be time for exploring other Wheeling-area abandonments, but I was quite wrong.

We parked about 1/2 mile from the factory in a residental area. I looked around for my tripod, but I could not locate it! I had left it in my car's trunk, a four-hour drive back, so I would need to improvise for this exploration.

The walk to the plant was uneventful. We circled the entire plant from the south side, along US 250 and several other busy roadways in the middle of town. There were no pedestrians out during that time, thankfully, however, motorists were speeding by as if in a funeral procession.

Oherian took me to the cemetery that abuts the old factory. Trying to see if the keeper of this beautiful resting place was home, we started investigating some old tombstones. After about 3 minutes of that, we knocked on the door of the caretaker's residence, and after noone answered, we hopped over a small wall, slipped into a gate, and then walked straight into the factory.

It was immense and overpowering. There were carts laying about, crates scattered, and scales in various locales waiting to be used. There was an overall staleness of the air; thankfully it was not as sooty as the New Boston Coke Plant, so my little respirator mask was quite effective. Oherian had a large respirator mask that is 10,000x better than mine, so he is safer than I was :)

I improvised on my first 20 or so photographs by using various walls, resting places, and whatever else I could find as a makeshift tripod. These photos turned out really well suprisingly, and granted me some very unique vantagepoints for some photos.

After climbing some stairs, we were greeted with a conveyor belt and scales. A list of chemicals and their known health attributes were posted on a wall, giving me concern what was in the air. I did not realize so many unhealthy chemicals were used in glass making!

After about 30 minutes, I came across a suitable tripod. It was a light wooden box I nicknamed Wilson, after the volleyball in that one movie I cannot-remember-for-life's-sake. Maybe it was Cast Away, or Six Days and Nights, The Perfect Storm, or something like that. I ported Wilson around, snapping photos on my makeshift tripod.

Crossing between buildings was quite difficult. Some were in plain sight of the main sidewalk along US 250, abeit 20 feet lower, which made going between buildings risky. I found this out the hard way.

Oherian had crossed ahead of me from one building to the next, and I started to follow him. Luck behold, a bunch of kids were walking on the sidewalk above me, in the rain, and looked down at me. I believe they were more scared of me, with my blue mask and oversized jacket, as they had this bewildered and shocked look. I didn't want to stick around, so I ran into the next structure.

Some of the rooms we walked into were immense. Large scale machinery have been left in some buildings, while others were left empty. One particular room was quite sad, in my opinion. Machinery was left in their original conditions; tools that the workers were using were left on their desks and workbenches as they had left them; notes from the workers were there as well. It is as if they left work one evening only to come back the next with pink slips. Another room under the office building had a lot of cleared checks and documents relating to the business.

The characteristics of each structure were quite different as well. While some buildings had modern concrete floors that were stable to the touch, others had wood that was soggy and was squishy in places, making travel in some buildings very difficult or impossible. Some structures were in sound condition, with no water damage, while others were in complete disarray and have collapsed, all within the past 5 years apparantly.

This wooden floor aspect would prove to be disadvantageous later.

While walking around on the second floor of one wooden floor building, we started hearing creaking sounds above us, as if someone was walking. Thinking that those kids told the police or some other authority figure, we started huffing towards an escape route into another building -- all on wooden floors. Doing that was tricky, trying not to make any squeaky sounds and making sure the floor was stable -- some areas were somewhat questionable.

After walking into the basement of a collapsed structure (the top two floors appearantly collapsed), we were safe from whatever that sound was; more on that later.

At this point, we took a group photo. The sky was peering down an opening from above, and the surrounding objects made it look very much like a disarray.

--

After crossing from one building to the next in plain sight of a road that was next to impossible to cross without being seen, I realized I left behind Wilson! Not wanting to go back and risk it, I continued on. The building that we crossed into was what Chronic would call a "UER's wet-dream." The plain-jane first-floor yielded nothing spectular, but after climbing some wooden steps onto the second floor, I went, "Oh my God." Massive machinery, catwalks, and lots of tools and items left scattered about greeted us. It was a giant playground, all for us to have fun on.

Well, Oherian did for at least for a few minutes. I had to find a new Wilson, and after much searching, I found an identical box to use. I then started up the playground equipment but was very much afraid in some parts, for as you see, I am deathly afraid of heights. I finally made my way around and was quite pleased at my accomplishment. :)

Afterwards, we explored around the structure and I started poking around in the bathroom. I then started hearing the familar creeking sounds of the wooden boards above. Not knowing what they were and hoping that it was not a person poking around above me, I stepped out. Oherian told me to come over as he was next door, and said "look!" I saw nothing, but he said the board was raising up and making a creaking sound -- which would explain what occured earlier. The cause is still unknown.

We journeyed upstairs. Not much to see except for mushy floorboards and a collapsed walkway to another building.

--

It was then on to see what we had missed while we crossed from one building to the next. We found basement access into one structure and it was quite immense. Passageways led off from dark, dungeon-like corridors, with machinery, tools, and urinals left untouched from the day the factory was abandoned. Oddly enough, the basement had two men restrooms. In another large room, partially filled with water, Oherian discovered many railcars that were supposedly used to shuttle raw materials around. In another, we saw the bottom of the ovens that baked the glass.

There were many areas left untouched for sure. Some of the basement had yet to be explored, and some structures were just barely touched upon -- some in part due to the wet conditions of the day that highlighted rotten floors -- and others because we were running out of time or were too visible.

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