Read time: 5 min.

People have been asking me to write about old factories for months now. Consider that wish granted! I was driving around the south side of Muncie on the day after Christmas when I stopped to take photos of this imposing property. About a hundred years ago, it was home to the Aladdin Manufacturing Company. 

In 1917, Overton Sacksteder, Jr. came to Muncie to become manager of the Highlands Manufacturing Company¹. After an early discharge over which he filed suit for $20,000², Sacksteder formed the Aladdin Manufacturing Company with George Spencer and W.F. Spencer, Jr., in 1920³. In short order, the company purchased property adjacent to Muncie’s first airport⁴ at the southeast corner of Hackley and Eighteenth Streets⁵. 

Aladdin turned out an astonishing range of products- everything from radios and curtain rods to bookends, aquariums, and smoking stands⁶. Still, one item rose above the rest: Aladdin’s electric lamps, which became the company’s signature. In 1927, it doubled down on that success by opening a dedicated downtown showroom, Household Electric, Incorporated, at 107 West Jackson Street⁷. 

Expansion followed soon after. In 1931, Aladdin strengthened its position in the market by purchasing the Wellington-Stone Company, a Chicago-based competitor⁸. Two years later, the company even went so far as to build a truly outsized showpiece for the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago. 

Aladdin’s massive lamp was less a household object than a piece of industrial theater: towering twelve feet tall and crowned with a six-foot shade, the massive creation was designed to stop fairgoers in their tracks! It also served as an advertisement for Aladdin’s ambition and technical prowess: the shade consisted of a new non-spot clear parchment that the company spent years developing for nearly $25,000⁹. 

By 1935, Aladdin Manufacturing Company had grown into a substantial local employer with a workforce of 150 people¹⁰. Despite the familiar name, though, the Muncie operation was not the same company as another lamp manufacturer based in nearby Alexandria. That distinction was settled in court in 1936, when a legal ruling awarded the “Aladdin” name to the Alexandria firm¹¹.

Forced to reinvent itself, the Muncie company emerged as General Lamp Company and relocated to Elwood in 1941. The move marked a new chapter, but not a permanent one: after nearly two more decades of operation, its story came to a close in 1959, when the company was acquired by Fostoria Glass¹². 

Fortunately, the old Aladdin facility didn’t sit idle for long. In the early 1940s, Muncie Gear Works expanded into the old plant to manufacture a variety of products for the war effort. The firm churned out 37-millimeter gun carriages, aircraft parts, outboard drives for barges, landing craft, and rocket components¹³! In later years, parts of the old Aladdin property were home to Brady Air Controls and Muncie Precision Hard Chrome. 

Today, the complex appears abandoned, and you’re sort of forced to look at its massive buildings when you pause at the four-way stop of Hackley and Eighteenth. Unfortunately, signs of change have been there for a while: when I drove past the plant in 2023, crews were already setting fenceposts in the ground to block the factory off. Now the fence is fully in place. 

Rather than signaling renewal, the barrier around the old Aladdin Manufacturing Company’s buildings feels more like punctuation; a hard stop. By sealing off a place that once buzzed with activity and leaving it to wait for whatever comes next, the new fence draws an official line between the site’s working past and its uncertain future. 

Sources Cited
1 Greene, D. (1976, March 11). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 6.
2 Sues For $20,000 Damages (1920, October 16). The Muncie Star. p. 18. 
3 Will Manufacture Lamps (1920, April 6). The Muncie Star. p. 4. 
4 Album of yesteryear (2002, July 14). The Muncie Star Press. p. 24. 
5 (See footnote 3). 
6 (See footnote 4). 
7 Progressing With Muncie— the “Magic City” (1927, September 127). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 45. 
8 Local Factory In Expansion (1931, January 29). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1. 
9 Huge Lamp Is World’s Fair (1933, July 2). The Muncie Star. p. 2. 
10 Gerhart, L. (1985, January 5). New-old mayor came in 1935 New Year. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 8. 
11 (See footnote 4).
12 (See footnote 4). 
13 Sale Scheduled Thursday (1973, May 14). The Muncie Star. p. 1.