Let's step back to the year 1935, when the W. B. Conkey Company located right here in Hammond had staked claim as being the most modern and best equipped printing plant in the world. During its early years in the city from 1906 to 1908 it held claim to being the largest printing plant in the world.

In 1898 the company built on a nine acre site in what was the outskirts of the town of Hammond. The plant produced the first Sears Roebuck catalog that year.

After the original owner and president Mr. Conkey died in 1923, his son Henry P. Conkey took over controlling interest of the company. Rather then pursuing to have the largest plant on the globe, his son sought to have the most modern and well equipped facility, so he could manufacture books at the least possible cost.

"As a result, several of the departments which had previously contributed to the bigness of the plant were curtailed or eliminated and specially designed equipment was installed to manufacture books and catalogs." stated Mr. E. J. Heckelman, a Conkey executive.

"We lost in size, but we gained in modernity. At present, our company enjoys the lowest insurance rate in the printing industry - an excellent indication of the high type of equipment and structures developed under Henry Conkey.", Mr. Heckelman said.

Numerous types of catalogs and books were printed at the plant. The list included text books, biographies, encyclopedias, fiction, Bibles, brochures and special hand made volumes. The equipment was so modern, "that the company could set up and produce a 160 - page book within 24 hours."

The facility had the ability to produce 40,000 books a day. Two railcar loads of paper were used every eight hours. The Conkey Company gave employment to 550 workers in 1935. Some of the equipment was specially made for book manufacturing. A gathering machine used in the book making process was termed "almost human". This machine would gather segments of books for binding and stop the moment it made a mistake.