Ten years after the demise of the Norman Paper Company at 1 Appleton Street in 1927, the Holyoke Water Power Company purchased the building. Its intent, as with other such purchases in the city, was to rebuild the space for start-ups and other smaller businesses. It was an opportunity for entrepreneurs to pay below-market rents to establish a foothold and improve their chances of success.
By 1940, seven factories had started operating at this former paper mill. One of the seven was the Holyoke Magazine Press, a job printing factory, the topic of today’s story.
Holyoke Magazine Press was wholly owned by the Springfield Newspapers and was said to have started in 1938. The business may have initially been named Thorn Press Printers, which operated there in 1938 and 1939. The business was formed by Sherman Hoar Bowles, the fourth generation of his family to operate the Springfield Republican newspapers. In its early years, Holyoke Magazine Press printed comic strips in a bound form and as newspaper inserts.
Arnold L. Imshaug was the General Manager of the company since 1942. Over the course of his career, he was granted several patents for devices improving printing processes. The patented parts were manufactured at Holyoke Magazine Press.
During World War II, there were restrictions placed on both the quantity of paper and its use in manufacturing. 37 comics and 5 detective magazines produced by other magazine concerns were banned at the time to conserve paper resources. Holyoke Magazine Press was producing 4 Wild West magazines, all unaffected by the prohibition, but in reduced quantities.
The company employed 100 workers in 1946. In 1948, Sherman Bowles purchased the magazine “The Open Road for Boys,” which had a circulation of half a million copies and would now be printed by Holyoke Magazine Press.
As the company shipped over a million magazines nationwide each month, it was the Holyoke Post Office’s single largest customer. The company was a pacesetter in the field of printing color comic strips.
Due to heavy competition in the field of bound comic strips, the company curtailed production in that area in 1958. As a result, the workforce was reduced from a high of 218 in August to 70 in November. The company continued to produce “small digest books, pulp magazines, and a few comic books; printing the Springfield newspapers’ Sunday comic section; and commercial work.”
In 1963, “Story,” a magazine founded in Vienna, Austria, in 1931, was brought to the United States by Random House Publishing and the Book-of-the-Month Club. The magazine would be printed by Holyoke Magazine Press.
On the morning of September 29, 1967, the company announced to its 120 employees and customers that it would be shutting down operations on November 30, 1967. The Springfield newspapers had been unsuccessful in their attempts to find a buyer. However, a month later, a new announcement stated that a buyer had been found and the business would continue. A new corporation was formed on October 25, 1967 and was similarly named the Holyoke Magazine Press, Inc.
The company experienced a resurgence and began producing numerous safety signs and additional magazine types. The company produced 85% of the crossword puzzle magazines sold, as well as horoscopes and mysteries. Some of its clients were Zelar’s Official Horoscope, Galaxy Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Ranch Romances and Adventures. The company printed the largest crossword magazine in its 6-inch-by-9-inch edition. Its mystery magazine was a pocket edition.
In 1970, the company was sold to Suburban Publishers Inc. of West Pittston, Pennsylvania, and operated as a subsidiary of Jewelcor Inc.
An announcement was made in July 1974 that the plant would close on August 16. The unsuccessful bids made for two major contracts were too significant to overcome. The plant employed 62 workers at the time. The magazine press work was moved to West Pittston, PA and the equipment was sold privately.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee, Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
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