By GEORGE ROGERS
of The Gazette
In a day when inventions are obsolete almost before they're patented, the Linotype stands out. It dates back more than a century and it's still being used.
Admittedly not used very much, but Will Lehner of 433 McDill Ave., Whiting, has a couple in his garage, probably the only ones in the county.
Lehner was a printer for the Worth Co. of Whiting. Worth is a manufacturer of fishing tackle components and related items, not a publisher, but the company had a printing plant to produce things like catalogs. Lehner set the type on Worth's Linotype.
Worth stopped doing its own printing in 1986 and that's when Lehner retired. Bob Worth gave him the Linotype, and Lehner has continued to do a little type-setting on the side.
Using a molten metal alloy (mostly lead), Linotypes create a line of type, hence the name.
Printing today is mostly done on offset presses, which use "cold type," a photographic process. So Linotypes have mostly disappeared, except from Lehner's garage.
Besides the one he got from Worth, Lehner has a Linotype he bought from the Spectra Print Corp. He used to have a couple more which he bought in Wausau and cannibalized for parts.
Lehner uses the type he produces to create molds for rubber stamps, which he makes for a number of local businesses. Also, printers occasionally need type for specialized purposes, and he sets it for them. It's not exactly full-time work, nor does he want it to be. He points out that he's 78 years old.
Lehner grew up in St. Paul, Minn., served in the Navy during World War II and was in Hawaii when the Japanese visited there on Dec. 7, 1941. That's why his car has a "Pearl Harbor" license plate.
After the war he studied printing at Dunwoody Industrial Institute in Minneapolis, worked for a weekly newspaper in Farmington, Minn., came to Stevens Point in 1949, worked for Valley Sales (now known as Spectra Print) and joined Worth in 1954.
And he's still a printer, but for the most part only when he wants to be. As for his Linotypes, "As long as I can use them, they're not going to be museum pieces."
The story of the Linotype goes back to the 19th century. Ever since Gutenberg's time printers had set type by hand, one character at a time. Then they had to put it back in the type cases, again one character at a time. Obviously not a speedy process.
Many inventors had tried to mechanize typesetting, but all failed.
Then came Ottmar Mergenthaler, a native of Germany and a boyhood immigrant to the United States. He came up with a machine that worked, and it was first demonstrated in 1886. It revolutionized the industry, and though at first it eliminated some printers' jobs, in the long run it created new ones because it stimulated more printing.
Newspaper and commercial printing plants all had Linotypes. The first one in Stevens Point arrived in 1910 at the Journal, and Leslie Clark, a printer there at the time, recalled in 1958 that it was "a real sight. People kept coming in the office to look at it."
By whatever name, Linotypes are durable. Lehner's are of unknown age, but are probably about as old as he is. If maintained, they last approximately forever.
It's an intricate gadget, and according to legend Mergenthaler died insane, driven to madness by the complexity of his machine. How would he have coped with computers?