Press switches to offset printing July, 1964; Sentinel in May, 1965

Taken from: Bent Pins to Chains

Since 1930, the Petersburg Press had been printed on a drum cylinder press manufactured in the 1890s by D.B. Cottrell and Sons in Rhode Island. It printed eight full-size pages. The PRESS went to the new photo-offset method of production July 1, 1964, with page size reduced to a tabloid format measuring 11x17 inches. Most weekly newspapers including the Sentinel and the Pilot are printed in the same tabloid format.

The Petersburg Press was the first hot metal Alaska newspaper to convert to offset. Its new equipment consisted of a

Chief 22 offset press and a Kenro vertical camera. Williams described the process to his readers:

“In offset, a photograph is made of the material to be printed. An aluminum or paper plate is made from the negative just as a picture is printed from a negative. The plate, when put on the press, transfers an inked image to a rubber blanket, which prints or, “offsets,” the image onto the paper page. In letterpress, type is set, inked and the image is transferred directly to the paper.

The first offset edition featured an aerial view of Petersburg that was later reduced and included on the front-page flag.”

On May 12, 1965 the Wrangell Sentinel appeared in a new format, having switched from a Campbell drum cylinder press to a new offset press. In switching to offset, the paper page was reduced to a tabloid size but the number of pages was doubled. It was the third Alaskan paper to switch from hot metal to offset. The

Petersburg Press and the Southeast Alaska Empire in Juneau had both undergone the

change.

The Williamses sold the Sentinel press equipment to the new Seward Phoenix Log and began printing the Sentinel in the Petersburg plant.

Publisher Glenn Luckie closed the Petersburg Press in January 1974 and took the printing press to Juneau to begin a commercial printing operation. The Wrangell Sentinel, and months later, the new Petersburg Pilot were both printed at the Ketchikan Daily News offset plant.

The Daily news continued printing the Sentinel until the Loeschs purchased the Sentinel in December 2003. The Pilot was printed in Ketchikan until 1985, when Loesch, a former pressman at the Ketchikan Daily News, purchased a two-unit Goss Community Offset Press and folder and began printing the paper in Petersburg.

The move improved on-time delivery of the Pilot to newsstands and readers because weather sometimes delayed arrival of page layouts to Ketchikan or finished papers back to Petersburg. Scheduled and chartered air carriers provided shipping services between the two communities.

Today the Petersburg plant operates six Goss Community printing units and a folder, enabling the production of up to a 32-page newspaper with full color photos on up to 4 pages of the publication.

 

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