In 1935, glass giant Libbey-Owens-Ford of Toledo, Ohio, acquired the Vitrolite Company. Hadley-Dean became a distributor of L-O-F products, and benefited from the company's marketing savvy. Hadley-Dean salesmen now called on contractors and their customers with L-P-F sample books showing 36 different Vitrolite colors and finishes. The company provided black-and-white photo glossies of showcase home kitchens, Kohler and Crane display baths, modern storefronts, gleaming bakeries, beauty shops and barbershops, even tiny service stations faced entirely in Vitrolite.

One old L-O-F brochure, "how to Plan and Construct Modern Storefronts," gave advice on lighting, color, and sightlines, to help storeowners "Build a Better Main Street." Other brochures gave architects and contractors detailed specifications and diagrams for installation and use. By the end of the Thirties, nearly every St. Louis movie theatre contained Vitrolite, and the stores on Grand Avenue "were thick with it," recalls Don Caviecy.

But, by the close of the Forties, tastes had changed. Other bath and kitchen materials, such as plastic laminates and manufactured tiles, competed with Vitrolite for looks and economy. L-O-F closed the first of two Vitrolite plants after World War II, and Sani-Onyx, then Carrara ceased to exist. In the late Sixties, the last Vitrolite ashlars were produced, and in 1979, St. Louis' own Hadley-Dean Glass Company closed its doors. Now, only a kind of ersatz Vitrolite, a black opaque glass made by a company in Czechoslovakis, is produced. But the enthusiasm and skills of two Vitrolite guys in St. Louis still preserve the magic Art Deco look of those early shining years.