Industrial Exodus: Plimpton Press Leaving Norwood-This Day in Norwood History-June 28, 1966
Town’s Largest Single Employer Suffers Growing Pains, Announces $5-Million Piecemeal Relocation to Wrentham After Local Land Runs Dry
In a staggering economic blow to the industrial spine of the community, The Plimpton Press—Norwood’s largest single employer—officially announced today that it will permanently relocate its massive book manufacturing operation out of town. The publishing giant has finalized a deal to construct a brand-new, modern manufacturing facility in Wrentham, representing a corporate investment of approximately $5 million.
Harry Howard, the vice president of the historic publishing house, broke the news at noon today, explaining that an unexpected information “leak” forced management to post official notices throughout the local workshops earlier than originally intended. The company currently employs a massive workforce of 1,200 local men and women. To mitigate immediate structural chaos and prevent sudden widespread job losses, Howard emphasized that the monumental relocation will be executed “piecemeal” over a deliberate, five-year transition period.
According to Howard, the primary catalyst for the industrial exodus is a severe case of corporate growing pains compounded by a complete lack of available industrial real estate within Norwood’s town borders. The company’s rapid post-war expansion has heavily outpaced its physical footprint.
“In Norwood, manufacturing processes are currently carried out in six separate buildings adjacent to the main plant,” Howard explained, noting that the fragmented layout has made daily printing, binding, and shipping logistics highly inefficient. To remain competitive in the national publishing market, The Plimpton Press requires a singular, streamlined, single-level modern complex that can house all heavy machinery under one roof.
The official notice posted on the plant floor today outlines the immediate phases of the multi-year retreat:
“It will take some time to prepare plans for developing a plant in the site but it is our hope to have the new, four-color web offset press now on order and have a warehouse operating in the new plant earlier in 1967. No plans have yet been made for moving other manufacturing departments.”
The company’s selected destination is an expansive parcel of land in Wrentham situated directly adjacent to the Norfolk town boundary line. The rural site sits less than a mile from the Walpole State Prison (commonly known as MCI-Walpole). While the new location provides the sprawling acreage necessary for massive printing presses and modern assembly lines, it introduces an immediate logistical burden for the workforce. For the hundreds of Plimpton Press employees currently residing north of Norwood, the relocation to Wrentham will tack on an additional nine miles of commuting distance each way.
Recognizing the intense, months-long political scrambling that occurred behind the scenes to try and preserve the town’s primary tax base, the executive management of The Plimpton Press issued a formal statement of gratitude to local civic leaders. The company explicitly acknowledged and appreciated the helpfulness and all-out effort made by the Norwood Board of Selectmen, other municipal officials, and the Norwood Industrial Commission in their exhaustive, panicky search to secure a viable local alternative site.
Ultimately, however, local geography won out over political will. It proved structurally impossible to obtain an area of sufficient size within the official town limits that met the immense, specialized requirements needed for a major, high-volume book manufacturing operation. Howard concluded his briefing by confirming that while the 1967 warehouse deployment represents merely the first step toward the total relocation of the entire printing operation, it marks the definitive end of The Plimpton Press’s historic, century-long chapter as the anchor of Norwood’s industrial golden era.
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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