Elton Gish first glimpsed a glass electrical insulator in 1970 while admiring a neighbor's collection.

The Lumberton man was enamored by the colorful, translucent glass. So he got one of his own —which was made by the Brookfield Glass Company — and that ignited for collecting a variety of antique glass and porcelain insulators.

Gish, who retired in 2014 after 46 years as a chemical engineer for Texaco and later Motiva, said he became immersed in the history of insulators while studying old electrical trade journals as a student at Lamar University. He now keeps vintage company catalogs to assist with his research. He's also written two books on insulators.

Insulators were integral to the growth of America as telegraph lines enabled people to communicate across large distances, he said. Insulators later helped transfer electricity as Americans ventured west, Gish said.

Porcelain designs followed glass, when companies realized they were less fragile and could handle higher voltages of electricity.

Insulators are still used on power lines, Gish said, but the factories have mostly moved overseas. Victor Insulators, however, still operates in Victor, New York, where insulator innovator Fred Locke built his factory in the 1890s, Gish said.

More than 2,000 insulators — some of them dating to the 1850s — fill two rooms of Gish's Lumberton home.

His favorite is a white, bullet-shaped insulator that was one of the first porcelain designs.

It has threads that are screwed onto its mount, Gish said, nothing that only three are known to exist in in the world. The other two are in the Smithsonian Institution's collection, he said.

Gish gets most of his insulators from trading with other collectors. But one special insulator he and some friends got while on an adventure through the twisting mountain roads above Georgetown, Colorado.

In the thin air 11,000 feet above sea level, they climbed to the tops of posts to pluck long-forgotten insulators, he said. The group came away with about 15 on that trip.

Gish still has a small, brown porcelain one to remind him of his efforts. He said his friends told him it would be easier than it was. Gish said he no longer goes scouring for them himself.

Besides rarity, Gish said most collectors look for attractive colors and interesting glaze patterns, as well as small imperfections. A slight swirl of amber or an abundance of bubbles in the colored glass are things he looks for in glass insulators. Clear glass and plain white or cobalt blue porcelain are less sought after, he said.

Southeast Texas Tales is a weekly feature that revisits regional history.

Ryan Pelham was a photographer at the Beaumont Enterprise.

We are a Hearst-owned media company, serving Southeast Texas since 1880.