Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Kings Mills

Short-lived Midwest pressing plant for Columbia Records, opened in early 1946 on the grounds of the old Peters Cartridge Co. factory in Kings Mills, Ohio (on the outskirts of Cincinnati). A combination of a post-war sales slump and the opening of the newer Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Hollywood led to Columbia shutting down the Kings Mills plant in June 1948, just a few months before the introduction of the Long Playing record. The remaining presses used by Kings Mills would be transferred to the Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Bridgeport by 1949, and it wasn't until later in 1953 that the label would start up another Midwestern pressing operation (Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Terre Haute). Pressings from Kings Mills have several of the same typesetting fonts on the center labels as used by the Bridgeport plant, except a different font was used for the catalogue number (14 point Erbar Bold Condensed), the matrix number was set in a serif font (7 point No. 1) rather than a sans-serif font, and the overall layout was generally clunkier than on Bridgeport typesetting jobs.