from Historical and biographical annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania.

Among the products of Bloomsburg which have gained world-wide fame there is none more favorably known than the Paul E. Wirt Fountain Pen ,one of the first of these famous writing instruments which have become a necessity to Americans and by them have been carried to the ends of the earth.

The Paul Wirt Fountain Pen factory in Bloomsburg was started in 1885 by Paul E. Wirt, one of the leading attotneys of the town, and has been carried on ever since with the continued and increasing success. Millions of these fountain pens have been sold, the sales in the United States exceeding five hundred thousand in a single year. So widely known has this fountain pen become that there is scarcely a country on earth which is not supplied with it through retail merchants. The pen is a "loop-feeder" and has stood the test of time, having many imitators, but none equal to it. Although there are many other firms marketing fountain pens, the sales of the the Paul Wirt Fountain Pen have never fallen off, but have increased yearly.

The factory where the pens are made is a two-story building, 25 by 75 feet in dimensions, with an addition 40 by 75, recently erected. Forty employees are engaged in the manufacture, diveded between the gold pen, rubber case, assembling and shipping departments. Most of the employees have been with the firm for years and have become unusually skillful. Every part is made in the factory, the gold for the pens being received by the mint, the rubber from South America, and the iridium from which the pen points are made from Russia. This metal has a value of $125 an ouunce.

Paul Wirt and his son, Karl Wirt, have become substantially identified with the life of the town and are connected with many of the other important industries, as well as holding positions in the local government and the board of trustees of the State Normal School.