United States Lithograph Company
The United States Lithograph Company was incorporated in 1901. It was built in Norwood at the corner of Forest & Park Avenues.
The building was four stories, 70’ x 200’ and 56,000 square feet. It cost about $75,000 ($2.5 million) and would grow to 800 employees.
The first company officers at the time were John Omwake (President), Samuel J. Murray (Vice President), Robert H. McCutcheon (Secretary) and F. D. Jamison (Treasurer). They started with 250 employees, of which less than 10 were females.
The United States Lithograph Company was incorporated in 1901. It was built in Norwood at the corner of Forest & Park Avenues.
The building was four stories, 70’ x 200’ and 56,000 square feet. It cost about $75,000 ($2.5 million) and would grow to 800 employees.
The first company officers at the time were John Omwake (President), Samuel J. Murray (Vice President), Robert H. McCutcheon (Secretary) and F. D. Jamison (Treasurer). They started with 250 employees, of which less than 10 were females.
On July 1, 1911 the United States Lithograph Company took over the assets of the Consolidated Lithograph Company. They were comprised of the Courier Company (Buffalo, New York), Donaldson Lithographing Company (Newport, Kentucky), The Erie Lithographing & Printing Company and the Walker Lithographing & Printing Company (Both of Erie, Pennsylvania) and the Metropolitan Printing Company of New York and New Jersey which previously had acquired the A. S. Seer Print Company of New York and the H. A. Thomas & Wylie Lithograph Company of New York. They had a plant adjoining the United States Lithographing Company. They also owned a factory site of 10,142 acres in Newark, New Jersey and a manufacturing and warehouse building in New York City.
In 1913 the United States Lithograph and the United States Printing, three blocks away on Beech Street, would merge and become the United States Printing & Lithographing Company.
In July 1914 Arthur Russell Morgan (Robert J. Morgan's son), now a company Vice President, was for selling the lithograph plant to use the money to build a new warehouse at the United States Printing Company location.
James Heekin was the founder of a can company in Cincinnati. He originally sold food products, including coffee, tea, spices, extracts, and baking powder, packaged in tin cans. After his can supplier increased prices in 1900, Heekin began to make his own cans. The can manufacturing operation soon evolved into the Heekin Can Company, which not only supplied the Heekin Spice Company, but also made cans for other businesses.
When Heekin died in 1904 one of his 15 children, James J. Heekin, took over the business. Under his leadership the company began using lithography to add labeling and decoration to cans. It also introduced the open-top cylinder can.
In July 1914 Arthur Russell Morgan (Robert J. Morgan's son), now a company Vice President, was for selling the lithograph plant to use the money to build a new warehouse at the United States Printing Company location.
James Heekin was the founder of a can company in Cincinnati. He originally sold food products, including coffee, tea, spices, extracts, and baking powder, packaged in tin cans. After his can supplier increased prices in 1900, Heekin began to make his own cans. The can manufacturing operation soon evolved into the Heekin Can Company, which not only supplied the Heekin Spice Company, but also made cans for other businesses.
When Heekin died in 1904 one of his 15 children, James J. Heekin, took over the business. Under his leadership the company began using lithography to add labeling and decoration to cans. It also introduced the open-top cylinder can.
Known as the "sanitary" or "packers" can, this new design was soon adopted as an industry standard. In 1915 a second manufacturing facility was added, due in part to increasing demand from customer R. J. Reynolds Company. The new plant was described at one time as the United States' "largest metal lithographing plant under one roof"
United States Tobacco Journal, Volume 87, January 1917
Big Lithograph Plant for the Heekin Can Co.
CINCINNATI, OHIO
"The Heekin Can Co of Cincinnati, Ohio, has recently purchased the factory of the U. S. Lithographic Co. at Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati five miles from the business section the town. It will give the Heekin Can Co. the additional lithographing facilities which have been made necessary by the steady increase of the company's business. Norwood, though at present governed independently of Cincinnati, is practically a part of the city as it is entirely surrounded by the suburbs and its post office is a branch of the Cincinnati post office. Special trains and cars run to and from Cincinnati, thus providing ample transportation facilities for employees."
Big Lithograph Plant for the Heekin Can Co.
CINCINNATI, OHIO
"The Heekin Can Co of Cincinnati, Ohio, has recently purchased the factory of the U. S. Lithographic Co. at Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati five miles from the business section the town. It will give the Heekin Can Co. the additional lithographing facilities which have been made necessary by the steady increase of the company's business. Norwood, though at present governed independently of Cincinnati, is practically a part of the city as it is entirely surrounded by the suburbs and its post office is a branch of the Cincinnati post office. Special trains and cars run to and from Cincinnati, thus providing ample transportation facilities for employees."
On April 15, 1965 the Heekin Can Company building was acquired by the Diamond International Corporation. Today it is a parking lot for Siemens Technology.
United States Lithograph Company Site Today