Since its founding in Buffalo, New York, in 1880, when it was known as the Wooden Jacket Can Company, the Ball company has expanded and diversified into other business ventures, including aerospace technology, and became the world's largest manufacturer of recyclable metal beverage and food containers.
The Ball brothers renamed their business the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1886. Its headquarters, as well as its glass and metal manufacturing operations, were relocated to Muncie, Indiana, by 1889. The business was renamed the Ball Brothers Company in 1922 and the Ball Corporation in 1969. It became a publicly traded stock company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1973.
In 1880, Frank C. and Edmund B. Ball, two of the five Ball brothers, borrowed $200 from their uncle, George Harvey Ball, founder and first president of Keuka College, to buy the Wooden Jacket Can Company, a small manufacturing business in Buffalo, New York. Soon, the three other brothers (William, Lucius, and George) joined Frank and Edmund in Buffalo.
Ball remained a family-owned business for over 90 years. Renamed the Ball Brothers Company in 1922, it is best known for manufacturing fruit jars, lids, and related products for home canning. The company also entered into other business ventures. Because the four main components of their core product line of canning jars included glass, zinc, rubber, and paper, the Ball company acquired a zinc strip rolling mill to produce metal lids for their glass jars, manufactured rubber sealing rings for the jars, and acquired a paper mill to fabricate the packaging used in shipping their products. The company also acquired tin, steel, and later, plastic companies.
According to wikipedia
