In 1888, Dr. Theodore Corson Wheaton, a pharmacist, began making his own pharmaceutical bottles in a glass factory in Millville. From these beginnings today’s giant glass manufacturer, Wheaton USA, formerly Wheaton Industries, Inc., evolved.

Early in the 1960s Dr. Wheaton’s grandson, Frank H. Wheaton, Jr., visited the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. He discovered that much of the glass created and produced in southern New Jersey was displayed in this museum. He felt that these treasured museum pieces should be displayed in the areas in which they were produced…southern New Jersey.