Know Your Neighborhood: The Philadelphia Mint (part 1:  History of the Mint)

Coins have been minted in Philadelphia as long as the federal government has produced coins.  First authorized by Congress in 1792, the U.S. Mint’s Philadelphia facility continues to be the nation’s largest producer of coins.  

The first Philadelphia mint, founded in 1792, was located on Seventh Street between Arch and Filbert Streets.  President Washington appointed David Rittenhouse to be the first Director of the Mint.  It was a 3 story brick building, with "Ye Olde Mint" painted on the facade.  The first mint produced copper half-cent and one-cent pieces, silver half-dimes (the precursor to the modern nickel), dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and dollars, as well as gold two-and-a-half-dollar, five-dollar, and ten-dollar coins.  As the United States grew, the mint could not keep up with the demand for coins.  In 1833 the mint moved to a new, larger building at Juniper and Chestnut Streets.  The building was  built with white marble and had columns that looked like the old Greek style. William Strickland designed the building and it measured 150 feet by 204 feet, which was much larger than the original. 

The second Philadelphia mint increased the output of coins with advanced metal-refining methods and state-of-the-art, steam-powered coin presses.  Following gold rushes during the 1830s and 1840s, the Philadelphia mint converted vast quantities of newfound gold into millions of circulating gold coins.  Despite the increased output, there were frequent coin shortages, so, to ease pressure on the Philadelphia mint and reduce transportation costs, the U.S. government established other mints around the nation.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, as the United States took its place as a global power, the Philadelphia mint began producing coins for other nations. Eventually, the Philadelphia mint struck coins for dozens of countries, including Panama, the Philippines, and Cuba. However, the size of the second Philadelphia mint’s facility hindered its production capabilities. To increase output and improve efficiency, the mint moved in 1901 to an even larger facility at 1700 Spring Garden Street.

Located near the United States Smelting Company, several machine shops, and railroad tracks, the third Philadelphia mint had an ideal location for receiving raw supplies and transporting finished coins. The massive building occupied nearly a full city block. Because of its size and well-chosen location, the third Philadelphia mint quickly became one of the most productive coin manufacturing facilities in the world.

Despite the impressive productivity of the third Philadelphia mint, over time its equipment became outdated and its production processes grew increasingly inefficient. In an effort to improve efficiency, in 1969 the Philadelphia mint moved once again to a larger (almost three times the size), more technologically sophisticated facility just a couple of blocks from "Ye Olde Mint".  One million coins can now be minted in just half an hour, which would have taken 3 years to do at the original mint.  After the opening of the fourth mint, the third mint was acquired by Community College of Philadelphia, becoming part of the college’s main campus.

Next week, in part 2, we'll look at what the old city neighborhood looked like before the demolition of dozens of buildings to create the space for the mint.