Rest in Peace Grandpa Goss, the Printing Press Once Used for the Ripon Commonwealth

Vince Smith delivers a unit of the "new" press during the winter of 1965.

A newspaper printing press that for more than half a century produced the Ripon Commonwealth Press, as well as other community papers in east-central Wisconsin, died last month.

It was 56 years old.

The press was born in Ripon in the winter of 1965 at 306 Blackburn St., where it revolutionized the local printing industry, at least as it had existed before the first Ripon Commonwealth was first published in 1864, the year before President Lincoln was shot.