The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1901-12-28
POSTAL CARD FACTORY.
T IS NOW LOCATED AT PIEDMONT
IN WEST VIRGINIA

IN WEST VIRGINIA
Only Forty Employees Needed to w, rk the
! PIant-Prescnt Averages Output Over
100000 Day-Vast Business Done
by Contract.
| The modest plant that turns out mil
lions of postal cards every month TOR
Uncle Sam is located in a little West
Virginia mountain town, high up in the
Appalachian range, not far from the
border line of Maryland, states the Gin
cinnati Commercial I ribnnf.
The town is Piedmont, Mineral coun
ty, w. Va, and here the busy factory is
at work six days in the week, making
the little oblong sheets of cardboard on
which SO many messages of all sorts
and kinds are written by all conditions
Of people. Here the cardboard is made
from the fresh, sweet spruce trees
here it is cut into the requisite sizes
and here the cards are printed, packed
and shipped, eventually finding their
way into every state, city, town and
hamlet in the country and to Cuba. Por-
to Rico, Hawaii and the Philippine
Islands.
The paper out of which the postal
cards are manufactured is all made t
the large sulphite and paper mills 10
Gated here, and adjoining the postal
works. This is the largest pulp and
paper mill in the United States, and has
branch plants at Davis, w. Va; Gov
ington, Va, and Tyrone, Pa.
The United States postal card works
were located in Piedmont on December
1, 1897, having been transferred from
Castlcton, N. Y. Mr. Albert Daggett,
of Brooklyn, N Y, has the contract for
the term of four years to manufacture
all the various kinds of postal cards re-
quired by the government.
The postal works proper are situated
at Luke, a suburb of Piedmont, on the
banks of the north branch of the Poto-
mac river.
The postal card works are located in
twostory hre-proof brick building,
with cement roof, and in which are
patent automatic fire sprinklers, with an
abundant supply of water at all times
for fire protection. The building is not
large-Ioo by 20 feet.
The power to run the machinery is
furnished by the plant of the paper com
pany, whose large plant adjoins that Of
the postal works. The building is
lighted by electricity and in winter is
heated by steam Neither matches nor
smoking of pipes or cigars are allowed
on the premises. The front door of
the works is always under lock and key
During the summer months large lattice
doors are used, with lock and key dur
ing the day. A time-registering clock
is used at night, which the watchmcn
have to touch at regular intervals in
their rounds.
Maj. E. H. Shook, the United States
agent and inspector, takes the greatest
care and precaution to guard against
theft, FIRE and visitors interfering with
either the cards or during the process
OF manufacture, and with the employees
while at work.
The first floor Of the building is used
for a press room, casing room and a
dry room for the printed postal cards
There are two presses in this room and
each sress has a capacity of 1900 i'm
pressioas N hour.
Th. nze of the sheets of paper used
on these presses is 50 by 80 inches, and
each ST" . contains ninety postal cards
ready to be cut and packed when 1t
comes from the press. The dies used
on these presses are furnished by the
government. Four men work at the
presses. The men all work eight hours
4 day. One man is used in the casing
part of this room to put together the
knocked down pine boxes in which the
cards are packed for shipment The I
boxes are made of pine gro~s, in West
Virginia and shipped "knocncd down"
o the contractor. The boxes vary in
sizes, holding 5000, 10000, $4,000 and
10000 cards respectively.
The largest shipment ever made from
he Piedmont works was on June I6,
900, when it reached the large number
If 100000
The cards were shipped to various
arge city post Offices and to the sub
lgencies. The subpostal card agencies
ire located at Cincinnati, St. Louis,
Troy, New York and Washington, D.
y. and are technically known as dis
ributing Offices, where requlsitions are
illed on orders of the stamp division CT
he third assistant postmaster general.
The number of employees necessary
o work this plant is only forty, of
which number twenty are males and
wenty fen1ales-a small number, when
he value and volume of this vast busi-
less are taken into consideration All
re expert at their work
The postal cards for use in the Phil
ppines are also manufactured at this
liant, and are like the domestic cards
ut are surcharged with the word
Philippines" just below the vignette.
t is the same with the postal cards
for use in Cuba and Por-
0 Rico. Those in use in the Island
f Hawaii are now the same as the
omestic cards.
The buff stock used in the manufac-
ure of all the cards is made at Pied
aont by the paper company, out of
pruce wood, by what is technically
novn as the ''sulphite' process This