<p>Workers put the new press together on Friday afternoon.</p>Donna Price

<p class="p1">The <em>American Press</em> will recognize its 123rd anniversary in April, but that’s not all the company is celebrating. 

<p class="p2">In two months, the six-parish publication will also flip the switch on its new Tensor printing press. 

<p class="p2">Production manager Gordon Clark said tractor-trailers have been making the trek from a Tupelo, Miss., storage facility to Lake Charles the past few weeks delivering the royal blue machinery piece by piece.   

<p class="p2">Clark said the search for the new press began in March 2014. 

<p class="p2">“Our publisher, Tom Shearman, shared with us his vision for how he wanted to see our newspaper expand, become more efficient and print a more colorful, sharper product,” Clark said. “It’s something Tom really pushed for, and we’ve tried to take his vision to guide us with new software and technology.”<p>The walls of a new warehouse to store newsprint and ink go up. </p>Gordon Clark

<p class="p2">Ultimately, Clark said, the production team found what they were looking for in a Tensor press manufactured in Chicago.

<p class="p2">Clark said the newspaper’s printing technology has advanced tremendously over the company’s 123-year history.

<p class="p2">Originally, a letterpress was used with linotype machines that used hot metal typesetting to create letters. The process involved producing news pages by repeated direct impressions of an inked, raised surface against a continuous roll of newspaper print. <p>The upper units of the new Tensor printing press are installed</p>Gordon Clark

<p class="p2">Clark said the process was similar to using a stamp and ink pad to transfer the news stories and images. Most of the pages created at the time were black and white and all the typsetting controls were done by hand.

<p class="p2">“It took lots of manpower to set up the press and print papers,” Clark said.

<p class="p2">He said in the late 1970s, the <em>American Press</em> switched to offset printing, which uses a large camera to take a photo of an artist-designed newspaper page. The negative film was then placed over a metal printing plate and exposed with an ultraviolet light. Those plates were later bent on the edges and hooked up to a cylinder on the printing press. <p>Sections of the new press await assembly.</p>Gordon Clark

<p class="p2">“All the ink setting and register of color were done by hand,” Clark said.  

<p class="p2">Today, the newspaper uses direct-to-plate offset printing. A graphic artist designs the newspaper page and

<p class="p2">a .pdf file of the image is printed onto a special printing plate using a violet laser. The plates go directly on the printing press once the image is created and a rubber cylinder transfers the image to the paper.

<p class="p2">Clark said the removal of the exposure process increased the speed, reduced the errors and elevated the quality of the image.

<p class="p2">“It’s saved us several steps and it’s been a much greener thing to do because we recycle all of our metal plates,” he said.

<p class="p2">Today, the <em>American Press</em> produces its newspapers using a three-story Harris printing press made in the early 1970s by a company no longer in business. <p>Sections of the new press arrive from a Tupelo, Miss., storage facility.</p>Gordon Clark

<p class="p2">“One of the issues with the press we currently have is finding parts and supplies and people to actually work on it,” he said. “Our press foreman, Darwin Johnson, and his crew do a great job of keeping it running; they’ve pretty much done all of the maintenance themselves.”

<p class="p2">Clark said as the press ages, the wear and tear gets harder to fix. 

<p class="p2">“It’s been a good press, but it was built for mass production of black-and-white pages, not color,” Clark said. “On the new press, we’ll be able to do auto-registration and auto-inksetting and that will create a lot less waste because it will take out the human guesswork of looking at the paper to line things up and making adjustments as they go.”

<p class="p2">The new press is being installed in the facility’s former paper and ink warehouse, which had to be renovated to accommodate the weight of the new press.

<p class="p2">Local architect Jeff Kudla designed a new paper and ink warehouse on the property and Kieland Construction built the facility.

<p class="p2">Clark said the company’s goal is to become a centralized printing hub in the Southwest Louisiana-southeast Texas region for other publications, as well.

<p class="p2">Clark said once the press is up and running, the <em>American Press</em> will again offer tours of its facility.