The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-03-27
POSTAL CARD FACTORY
A BUSY PLACE IN THE MOUNT
 AINS OF WEST VIRGINIA.
The Great Precautions Which Are
 Taken to Prevent Theft,

In little West Virginia mountain town situated high up in the Appa1ach- ian range, not far from the border of Maryland. is located the modest plant every month for the United States gov ernment. The town Is Piedmont w. Va, and here the busy factory Is at work six days in the week, making the little oblong sheets of cardboard which are destined to carry messages of all sorts from all conditions of people. Here, also, is made the cardboard from which the postal cards are made: here 1t is cut into the requisite sizes and the cards printed. and finally packed and shipped into every State, city. town and hamlet in the United States. Porto Rico, Ha- waii and the Philippine Islands.
 The large suphite and paper mills where Is manufactured the paper out of which the postal cards are made, are also located at Piedmont, adjoining the postal works. These mills constitute one of the largest pulp and paper man. ufacturing plants in the United States and mas branch establishments at Davis, ". Va; Covington. Va. and Tyrone, Pa. The postal works were formerly located at CastIeton x. Y., but in De- cember. of 1S9d they were transferred to their present location at Piedmont, or, to be more exact, to Luke, a suburb of Piedmont, on the banks of the north branch of the Potomac River MT. Albert Daggett of Brooklyn, N. Y. has the 
 kinds of postal cards required by the government. Mir. Daggett held the con- tract under the administration of Pres- dent Harrison. but lost it on the advent of President Cleveland.
 The postal card manufactory is a two- story, tireproof brick building with d ce- ment roof. The building is further pro- tected by patent automatic fire sprink- lers. with an abundant supply of water so that danger from fire Is reduced to d minimum. The building is not large about 100 by 50 feet The power to run the machinery is furnished by the plant of the paper company, whose large estah- lishment adjoins that of the postal works. The building is lighted by cleo tricity, and in winter Is heated by steam. Neither matches nor smoking of pipes 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. These also arc kept locked during the daytime. as we'll as at night. time registering clock is used at night which the watch men have to touch at regular intervals in their rounds. Major F. H. Shook is the United States agent and Inspector, and under his direction the greatest care and precaution are taken to guard against theft. There are also very stringent rules which prevent visitors interfering with either the cards after or during the pro- cess of manufacture, or with the em- ployes while at work.
 The first floor of the building is used for a press room, casing room and dry room for the printed postal cards. There are two printing presses in the press room. each having a capacity of l,2oo i'm pressions an hour. The size of the sheets of paper used on these presses Is o0 by 30 inches, and each sheet contains ninety postal cards, ready to be cut and packed when 1t comes from the press. The dies used in the printing of the cards are. of course, furnished by the government. The presses are operated by four men. each of whom works eight hours every day. In the casing-room one man Is kept busy putting together the knocked-down pine boxes in which the cards are packed for shipment. These boxes are made of pine grown in West Virginia and are shipped knocked down" to the contractor The boxes vary in size, holding 5000, 10000 25. 900 or 100000 cards respectively. The largest shipment ever made from the Piedmont works was a consignment of 24 000. 900. which went out on June IS, 1900.
 The cards are shipped to various large city postottlces and to the sub-agencies. These sub postal card agencies are locat- cd at Cincinnati. St Louis. Troy, New York and Washington. D. C.. and are known as distributing offices. At these distributing offices acquisitions for postal cards are filed on orders of the stamp division of the Third Assist ant Postulaster General. Less than full
 ards are shipped through the
 at Piedmont, and all care reg
 his is also the case with ship
 the insular possessions. The
 ot are shipped to the larger