From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 6/13/1908, p. 8, c. 5

RICHMOND FIRMS BEAT ALL ON FEDERAL CONTRACT
Tredegar and Richmond Iron Works to Make Coast Defense Projectiles for War Department – Competition Was Open to Entire Country.

With manufacturers in all parts of the country submitting competitive bids, the entire United States government contract for projectiles, involving more than $100,000, has been awarded to the Tredegar Company and the Richmond Iron Works, of this city. The contract was given to the Richmond Iron Works for the eighteen-pound projectiles, at a cost of about $20,000, while the Tredegar Company will make the heavier grade used in the government coast defenses – the ten and twelve-inch bore, weighing 1,250 pounds each.

The War Department secured bids from all sections, and the fact that the entire contract comes to this city indicates its wonderful forward strides in the iron market.

The bid of one Massachusetts firm was slightly lower than the Richmond Iron Works on the three-inch shells, but when the department took into consideration the fact that Government Inspector W. J. Tucker was located here, and that if the contract was awarded the Massachusetts firm it would be necessary to keep another inspector on the job, it was found to be cheapest to send the whole contract here. The projectiles are to be delivered from time to time, within fifteen months, and will bring the plants back to their full working force.

The two Richmond plants have heretofore filled government contracts for shell, the Tredegar Works dating its prestige in the field of armament back to the days of the Confederacy, when it was the principal arsenal and source of supply of the Southern forts and field pieces.

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