What is the history of ball canning jars?
The five founding Ball brothers started the company in 1880 in Buffalo, New York. In 1884, the renamed Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company began manufacturing yet another new product – the home canning jar. In 1887, the five Ball brothers moved their business to Muncie, Indiana, to take advantage of a natural gas boom in the Midwest. Great quantities of natural gas were necessary to make glass. Ball acquired the first of several small glass companies in 1898, and printed the first Ball Blue Book featuring home canning recipes and techniques in 1909.