Today, we went around Fayette County, more specifically in Connellsville. As a plus, I got to start my day by listening to the newly released Tyler, the Creator album titled Don’t Tap the Glass, which dropped this morning. I still need a few more listens before I can give it a proper rating, but for now, consider it at least a 7/10…

We started our day with an hour-and-a-half drive to our first site visit at Youghiogheny Glass in Connellsville. This was an amazing site visit. The first requirement to enter the facility was to wear pants and closed-toed shoes. I couldn’t imagine who would show up to a glass factory with shorts and flip-flops. When we arrived, we were met with decorated barrels of sand. They looked really cool, and I believe they were painted by Pitt students…

When we entered, we were greeted by the owner, who gave us a few minutes to walk around and look at the glass before we started our tour. There were so many interesting panes of glass. Lots of super unique color combinations and textures that I didn’t initially know were even possible with tinted glass. Some panes were smooth, like what everyone imagines glass feels like, but there were also panes with deep waves and a few with dots that looked like bubble wrap. Not only did the textures feel interesting, but the look of the glass was just as striking. Some panes looked like little galaxies, others like pieces of art, and others like marble…

After we walked around for a few minutes, we grouped back together and got a tour. We weren’t allowed to go to the back where they melt the sand into liquid glass due to safety, but we were able to see a super long machine that carefully cooled the heated and shaped glass. It took 58 minutes from start to finish for a pane of glass to be successfully cooled. The cooling process gradually reduces the heat until the glass reaches room temperature. Once cooled, it’s cut into their standard glass dimensions, and the excess is shredded to be used again. The glass that doesn’t get formed into a standard pane cools down inside the bucket it’s in and turns into a rock of glass. At the end of the tour, we were allowed to take an item or two, and I got myself a cool-looking blue/white/black glass rock and a pane of red swirled glass. I don’t know how I’ll transfer these back to Dallas, but I might keep them for my dorm as decoration. I didn’t get to take a photo of the glass I took, but I’ll show y’all some of the glass that’s there…

After that site visit, we went to the Connellsville Canteen and had lunch with two people from the Fayette County Cultural Trust. It was really cool to see the work they’ve done. They opened a Comfort Inn in 2017, which has helped Connellsville tremendously with capturing passing foot traffic. Connellsville has a population of roughly 7,000 people, but there’s a bike trail that runs right through it. Before the hotel existed, bikers would just skip past the town because there wasn’t anywhere to lodge. Now, local shops and restaurants benefit from bikers stopping for the night. Along with the hotel, the owners more recently built and opened a restaurant and event center next door, which is super booked and brings in lots of travelers and bikers every day…

But besides this hotel jackpot, the Cultural Trust has also helped renovate unused buildings and supported infrastructure improvements that will help keep people in Connellsville. However, the biggest takeaway from this visit is that small towns like this heavily rely on government grants. Our group brainstormed a lot of ideas to implement for our consulting project in Carrigart, Ireland, but we kept hitting a financial roadblock because we weren’t sure if we’d be able to use grant money for our plans. I will say, the Fayette County Cultural Trust is very good at utilizing the resources and connections they have to support their towns—especially since this town seems to be growing economically, which not a lot of towns an hour-plus outside of Pittsburgh can say…

All in all, if I could take one thing from this visit, it’s what we were told was the number one rule of small towns… a welcome. All throughout Connellsville, there were welcome signs, and the town truly felt welcoming. Signage will be the first thing I check for when we arrive in Carrigart, Ireland…