It was an ordinary day. Just picked up my mail from my mail "island" here at Woodcrest Villa. In my large mailbox were two "Smithsonian" magazines. I had subscribed to the magazine a few months ago and was waiting for my first magazine to arrive. Finally arrived a week or two late, but I got my September/October issue as well as my November/December issue. Since there is no dated material in this magazine, I didn't miss anything. And...what a magazine! Fantastic stories as well as spectacular photography fill this extremely informative magazine. One of my favorite stories from the July-August issue was titled "The Write Stuff" and dealt with a family who a owned pencil company in Tennessee which to this day still makes a statement in the digital age. Story begins with...Wood passes through the loud whine of saws spinning at 8,000 revolutions per minute. Pencils clack-clack-clack as they shoot through a paint box and assume their various hues. All that is needed to finish them is the imprinting of the logo and the freshly stamped name in silvery foil. This is the Musgrave Pencil Company which is one of a few pencil manufacturers left in the United States. Today there are perhaps four companies, whereas there used to be some two dozen companies that made lead pencils. So...how many of you still use pencils? The kind that you have to sharpen in a metal sharpener or perhaps sharpen with a folding knife. The stamped name on the length the pencil shines with its silvery foil imbedded name. The company is located in Shelbyville, Tennessee, about 60 miles south of Nashville, where the municipal seal bears the words "The Pencil City." That reputation began with James Raford Musgrave, who founded the wood-pencil mill there in 1916. The main reason they picked Shelbyville was the abundance of virgin eastern red cedars, the slow-growing premier pencil stock that the industry uses. The company cuts the wood into thin, flat slats that the factory sandwich around sticks of graphite, then slice into pencils. Mr. Musgrave began making pencils in 1923, launching what's thought to be the first pencil manufacturer in the South. Wasn't long before others arrived in Shelbyville and began making their own pencils. The company has close to 100 employees and produces about 72 million pencils a year! Mr. Musgrave is watchful for new ways to do business, since the US imported 3.7 billion pencils last year from China, Brazil and elsewhere. It wasn't the first time that the U.S. pencil industry was threatened. In 1564 a high quality of graphite was found in England which brought more pencil imports into the United States. Pencil making began in the United States around 1812. The late 19th century brought the start of the yellow pencil. Today, Musgrave gets most of its materials from China. They produce the standard #2 as well as the thicker carpenter pencils and the rotund Choo-Choo pencils. Their pencils are popular in the US because they are affordable and they are made in the USA. In 2019, Musgrave started selling its Tennessee Red pencils which has a natural fragrance. It is known as "the most American pencil that one could possibly buy. It is written that when you buy a box of the American pencils, you get a hand-written Thank You note...written in pencil, naturally! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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