Our History

From manual typesetting and computerless desktops, here's a quick look back at the early years of General Press!

The First Building

This is where it all began back in 1937. This pint-sized building housed everything from our office staff to the printing presses themselves. Located on Main Street, Tarentum, General Press quickly outgrew this site. We now have a 65,000 square foot facility in the hills of Natrona Height in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Office Area

Today it is difficult to imagine an office area without computers; hand-written messages, typewriters and carbon paper ruled. Our office had as many fundamental changes over the years as the rest of our departments allowing our customer service quality to be consistently unmatched in excellence.

Typesetting

This picture shows General Press employees using linotype and manual typesetting methods which was state-of -the-art at the time. General Press was the first printer in the Eastern United States to fully integrate desktop publishing into its operations back in the mid-1980's.

The Presses

In the early days, printing presses could only apply one color at a time. Once run, the ink had to be completely washed from the machine before the next color could be applied. General Press owned the second 6-color and 8-color sheet fed presses manufactured in the world.

The Bindery

A lot has changed over the years in the bindery department. Gone are the days when much of the collation, folding and binding were done by hand. Today these ladies would be thrilled to find themselves able to finish thousands of printed pieces simultaneously, just by the push of a button.