Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1909 — Big Printing Plant To Locate in Monticello. [ARTICLE]

Big Printing Plant To Locate in Monticello.

♦ The biggest thing yet secured for Monticello is the W. D. Pratt printing and book binding establishment of Indianapolis, which this week signed up an agreement to locate in Monticello if the building and site should furnished them, The contract was -Xlosed Wednesday by Messrs J. E. Loughry, C. D. Meeker and T. W. jO’Connor, who were sent to Indianapolis for-that purpose, and who secured the services of Judge Palmer, Who happened to be in the city, in completing the negotiations and writing the contract. The requirements of the Pratt concern are a building site and a brick ior cement building 100 feet square, ihalf of It to be two stories high and the other half one story with a sawtooth sky-light roof. The cost of the building and ground required of the town is approximately SIO,OOO. This looks like a pretty big thing to undertake, on top of what has already been done in Monticello in the past two years, but those who know what a big printing plant is say that the Pratt concern Is the biggest thing yet beaded our way and that we could not afford to let it go by. Mr. Pratt States that he will make it the biggest establishment of the kind in the state. Already seventeen acres of the A. Hanawalt tract of land, including his large brick residence, has been purchased, and negotiations are now in progress with Senator Turpie for the purchase of a twelve acre strip lying immediately west of the Hanawalt tract All this will be platted into lots and sold. The printery will be located on the Monon railroad north of the Hanawalt residence. The Pratt establishment is already a large institution that has outgrown its present quarters and is forced to move. When located here it is expected to make it the largest plant of the kind in the state. It will handle wrapping paper, soap wrappers, telephone directories, almanacs, pamphlets and magazine work. The equipment consists of two fine rotary presses of very -large size, several large flat-bed presses, two linotypes of latest design, a large stereotyping outfit, a bindery for all kinds of book and pamphlet work. Something like fifty or sixty people Will be employed from the very start and as soon as . the business is thoroughly established the number is expected to go right up to a hundred. ■The pay roll will exceed S6OO a week from the very first, and will soon Teach the thousand mark.—Monticello Democrat