EARLY CHARLESTON NEWSPAPER PRINTING

PART 2

Over the years the Charleston newspapers  kept up with the times and purchased the latest presses, sometimes used,  but when the Charleston Daily Mail and the Charleston Gazette combined in the same building, there was only one way to do it:  Share the Press.   And in 1972, it was decided to purchase the latest and greatest Press the world had ever seen, the Goss Metro Press.   Newspapers from around the world came to see it in action,  because not only was it the newest in technology, it was a MONSTER.   A large Press that could spit-out  72 pages of newsprint at 70,000 newspapers an hour!  This Press cost  3.1 million dollars, which is the equivalent of around twenty one million today.  That was a LOT of money for an area that was losing population by the year....

In the meantime, the old Press had to be gotten rid of....

          

A new section had to be added to the building in order to get this monster inside.

The newsprint arrived at the Smith Street warehouse of the New York Central Railroad, and trucked to the plant in a special truck just for that purpose.

Notice the tracks and little trolleys that carried the rolls of paper

 

The Goss Metro Press has operated faithfully for over 50 years now,  and is used not only for printing the last newspaper we have, but many other printing jobs from outside the company.  You have to wonder what's next?  Will the new Presses be half the size because they will only have to do half the job, as newspapers shut down all over the country?  Will this Press be too big to handle much smaller orders?  No one knows, but this miracle of engineering will probably be turned to scrap someday like all the others were.  And as the mean who know how to operate this behemoth dies off, will there be anyone to take their place?  Or will there be a need for men to take their place?  It's a whole new world for printing.

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