The "New Era Printing House With A Twist" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Posting a story today that deals with both the printing trade as well as weather prognosticating in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. If you have been reading my blog on a regular basis you probably know that I taught high school graphic arts and photography, so my story is about something that I should know a little bit about.  

The printing house was on the left, under the flag to the left.

Lancaster’s rich printing history dates back to 1751 when Benjamin Franklin opened a printing business in Lancaster with a Quaker printer by the name of James Chattin running the shop for him.  The following year Mr. Chattin left for Philadelphia while Heinrich Miller and Samuel Holland moved to Lancaster to take over for him.  It was late in 1752 that they printed Lancaster’s first newspaper, The Lancaster Gazette. 

The stories and articles were in both German and English.  Eventually printer William Dunlap took over the shop and became one of the great printers of Lancaster and the first to print the Declaration of Independence. When Franklin moved to England in 1757, Dunlap moved to Philadelphia to take over for him and the Lancaster printing office closed.  Sixteen years later Francis Bailey, a printer at the Ephrata Cloisters, relocated to downtown Lancaster in the first block of West King Street, where the newspaper office resides today.  He also moved to Philadelphia in 1780.  In 1794 the site on West King Street became home to The Lancaster Journal which was published and edited by by William Hamilton and Henry Wilcocks.  Then in 1799 the Intelligencer Journal began in the same office and is the same paper that today is the thirteenth oldest newspaper in the United States.  In 1877 the Lancaster New Era was added with the Sunday News beginning in 1923.  All these paper shared the same building on West King Street. The following story and drawing depicts the Lancaster newspaper office in Lancaster. Click on it to enlarge it.

Now, if you notice, on the top of the building you will see a series of flags.  These flags were used to predict and broadcast the weather in Lancaster.  The following chart tells what each flag means.

I must admit that until I recently saw these two items posted on a Lancaster Facebook page, I had no idea that there were flags on the top of the building.  And, I didn’t realize that the building looked as it did in this photo.  I have added the photographs that had been published before as to how it appeared.  Perhaps they are both one and the same building.  But, I must say that I’m not absolutely sure.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The printing office as it looks today.