In 1923 lamp production was transferred to the St. Marys plant, and in 1924 Sylvania Products Co. was organized under the same management as Nilco. Tube manufacturing equipment was installed and tube production started in the Emporium plant—the modest building in the small picture above. On Thanksgiving Eve, November 24, 1924, the first Sylvania tubes, all type 201A, were shipped from Emporium.
By 1929 continuous growth of Sylvania tube sales required the building of a large new plant which increased production capacity to 40,000 tubes per day, and gave employment to more than 1000 people.
In July 1931 Sylvania Products Company, Nilco Lamp Works, and the Hygrade Lamp Company of Salem, Mass. consolidated to form Hygrade Sylvania Corporation. B. G. Erskine was elected president and E. J. Poor chairman of the board of the new organization.
In 1933 a parts building was added to the Emporium plant. This department is equipped for a monthly production of some twenty-five million small mica and metal parts used in making Sylvanian tubes. In 1936 a large new tube plant was built in Salem, almost doubling daily tube production capacity.
Thanksgiving 1939 saw the completion of two imposing new wings which add 50,000 square feet of floor space to the Emporium plant, and an addition to the parts building is now being rushed to completion. Floor space owned and occupied by Hygrade Sylvania Corporation in Emporium and St. Marys, Pa. and Salem, Mass. totals almost eleven acres. The plants have a daily manufacturing capacity of 130,000 lamps and 150,000 radio tubes.
Originally published in “Sylvania News” Volume 8 Number 6 November-December 1939