Charleroi glassmaking memories buried in time capsule

Former Corelle workers were joined by public officials for an emotional ceremony in Charleroi.

Charleroi Mayor Greg Doerfler addresses the crowd Monday during the time-capsule ceremony at Meadow Avenue Park, where community members gathered to honor 132 years of local glassmaking. Jeff Helsel / MVI

Charleroi stood in the cold Monday in Meadow Avenue Park to say goodbye to the plant that shaped its people, its rhythm and its identity for more than a century. Below it, the plant sat tucked along the riverbank, dark now after decades of sending glass across the world. More than 50 people gathered near the dug-out square in the grass as the time capsule filled with 132 years of glassmaking history waited to be lowered into the ground, carrying pieces of a legacy only Charleroi’s glassworkers could build.

Tony Payne, a 36-year employee of the Charleroi glass plant, speaks Monday about the factory’s long history during the time-capsule ceremony at Meadow Avenue Park.

Some wiped away tears as the ceremony began at noon. In the background, longtime worker Daniele Byrne murmured that the whistle should be blowing. Everyone knew what she meant.

The wind cut through coats and scarves as families, retirees and former coworkers packed close together. Sen. Camera Bartolotta, State Rep. Bud Cook, Mayor Gregg Doerfler, Council President Kristin Hopkins, Councilman Larry Celaschi, Councilman Robert Whiten Jr., Borough Manager Joe Manning and Borough

Charleroi Councilman Larry Celaschi delivers opening remarks Monday during a ceremony at Meadow Avenue Park marking the burial of a time capsule honoring 132 years of glassmaking in the borough.

Secretary Roberta Doerfler stood with them. Members of the street crew waited nearby, ready to lower the capsule into the ground at the right moment.

It felt like the last reunion of a workforce that had stretched through generations. Some hugged. Some stood silent. Others watched with their hands buried deep in their pockets as the capsule waited beside the hole, ready to carry a century of stories forward.

The idea for the capsule began months earlier as a small gesture.

A headstone marking the burial site of the Charleroi glass plant time capsule is seen Monday at Meadow Avenue Park.

Tony Payne’s voice carried the weight of someone who had lived nearly every corner of the plant. After 36 years as an engineer, he became the person behind the capsule project, gathering the first handful of items and watching it grow into something far bigger than he imagined. He spoke about the “book of life” that every worker wrote inside those walls, shaped by forks in the road, long nights, furnace heat and friendships that lasted decades.

Marty Pappasergi, who spent 44 years working at the Charleroi glass plant, speaks Monday during the time-capsule ceremony at Meadow Avenue Park.

“When I walked into the plant in 1989, I didn’t just get a job. I gained a family,” he said.

Payne reminded the crowd that the capsule holds pieces of thousands of those stories, including items pulled from forgotten corners of the plant, notes from employees who signed the whistle logbook during the final months and the personal histories of people who came to Charleroi chasing the same American dream that built the community itself.

Bruce Smith, Fallowfield Township supervisor and board chairman, who also spent many years working at the Charleroi glass plant, speaks Monday during the time-capsule ceremony at Meadow Avenue Park.

“Tiny pieces of that dream are represented in this capsule,” he said. “This is the work of the hands that built this town.”

What started with a handful of items grew quickly as families arrived with boxes of photographs, handwritten notes, tools, glass fragments and keepsakes. Workers dropped off pieces from their last shifts. Stories poured in along with the artifacts.

Only a portion of everything collected could fit in the 55-gallon container, so the rest will likely go to the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y.

Inside the capsule is a portrait of the people who built the Magic City: old photographs, newspapers marking turning points, sprinkler heads pulled from retired lines, a Terrible Towel and the logbook workers filled with daily messages during the plant’s final months. One of the last items tucked inside was the American flag that flew at half staff outside the plant after the shutdown was announced.

“Our history book was empty 135 years ago,” Payne said. “And now every one of us has written a chapter. This time capsule holds pieces of the longest-running glass plant in the country. It’s our story.”

The good kind of fire

Throughout the ceremony, speakers talked not only about the end of the plant, but about what came before it.

Councilman Larry Celaschi told the crowd that Charleroi’s story begins with fire. Not the kind that destroys, he said, but the fire that shapes something strong.

“I like to call it the fire that built Charleroi,” he said.

He described Belgian and French craftsmen arriving in 1893 with little more than their skill and their hope for a better life. Their furnaces lit the valley, and their work fed the town’s homes, shops and sidewalks. For generations, the hum of the plant filled the river corridor.

“For 132 years, glassmakers here adapted through wars, depressions and collapse,” Celaschi said. “Every piece of glass that left Charleroi carried a piece of its people.”

He reminded the crowd that Charleroi glass traveled the world into homes, hotels, restaurants and even presidential palaces.

“Know that this town was forged by fire and strengthened by struggle,” he said.

When Byrne spoke, she brought the focus from history to home. She went to school across from the park where the capsule now rests and lived not far from it. She remembered hearing the whistle each day at noon before walking home for lunch the way her grandfather had done decades before.

“When the whistle blew, he’d change every clock in the house,” she said. “Corning time was the only time that was right.”

Byrne said the plant shaped everything around her, from the sidewalks and storefronts to the families who filled the porches on warm nights. “This town is going to miss what Corning brought to us,” she said softly.

Her voice caught when she talked about the logbook, now sealed inside the capsule with workers’ final messages. “We were a big family,” she said. “It’s sad to see something we worked so hard for disappear.”

Mayor Doerfler carried the same weight.

“This is a sad day,” he said. “I remember watching people walk to work every day. This didn’t have to happen. It breaks my heart to see everyone out of jobs.”

He paused, then added, “My mother told me all good things have to end. This one did. And it never should have.”

People who carried the flame

Others in the crowd shared memories that stretched across decades.

Bruce Smith, a third-generation worker, started in 1971 expecting a summer job. It became 37 years. He remembered friends warning him the plant wouldn’t last, yet it outlasted mills up and down the Valley.

“We outlived Allenport. We outlived the Monessen mill,” he said. “It was a great place to spend a career.”

He said those who open the capsule in a century will see the items but will never truly understand the life inside the walls. “The real memories stay with us until we’re in the ground,” he said.

For 47-year employee Leo Spada, the loss felt deeper than the end of a workplace. His family represented nearly every corner and era of the plant: his father, grandmother, brother, aunt, in-laws and even his own son all spent time inside the same walls. He remembered sitting at his grandmother’s window as a small child, staring at the glow of the buildings along the river long before he understood what they meant.

“It’s going to be hard to drive past and see it not operating,” he said. “This community was built around that plant.”

He learned the work long before he ever stepped inside. His father would sit at the dinner table and walk him through how to swab molds and work the machines, teaching him processes he couldn’t yet picture. Once he finally entered the plant as a young man, the pieces clicked into place: the noise, the heat, the dirt, the constant motion. But what struck him most wasn’t the machinery. It was the people.

“It was a family,” he said. “You went to work with your family.”

Don Good, the plant’s last resource director, said no matter how many times the company changed names, the town always knew exactly what it was.

“It was the glass plant in Charleroi,” he said.

He talked about the whistle as a timepiece for the whole Valley and the pride in the Pyrex made there. He remembered the 2015 Pyrex centennial celebration when people bought glassware faster than workers could bring it from the warehouse.

“You’ll never find better quality Pyrex than what came out of this building,” he said.

Longtime worker Marty Pappasergi closed the speakers by asking the crowd to hold on to what the plant gave them.

“Let’s not make this a sad day anymore,” he said. “Let’s make it a celebration of what we learned and gained from being together.”

A century buried

Council President Kristin Hopkins thanked the crowd and said the day carried both sorrow and purpose.

“It’s a sad but monumental day,” she said. “We are glad the borough could help put this together. It’s an important part of our history, but we are excited to move forward and recreate the magic that glass once brought.”

The burial marks the end of a defining chapter in the Magic City’s story. The 132-yearold Corelle Brands facility announced in September 2024 that it would close and shift production to Ohio. The final day of work came April 10.

The plant’s history stretches through eras of ownership, innovation and upheaval. For more than a century, glass from Charleroi filled kitchens across the country. It survived world wars and economic collapse. It shaped neighborhoods, families and the entire Mon Valley.

Now part of that story rests beneath a quiet patch of ground on a hill that looks over the town it helped build.

The capsule will remain sealed for 100 years.

In 2125, when people gather to open it, they will find more than artifacts. They will find proof that glassmaking in Charleroi was never just a job, but a source of pride, identity and family. But for those who stood in the cold Monday afternoon, huddled together on the hill, it was the final goodbye to the plant that built their town.

“Tiny pieces of that dream are represented in this capsule. This is the work of the hands that built this town.”

TONY PAYNE