Pioneer of the Paper Box Industry in VirginiaThe War Between the States had just ended. Richmond and the South were slowly emerging from the ashes. August Pohlig, like practically all his other fellow-Richmonders, had to make a fresh start. Being a knife-grinder and polisher in his native Germany, Pohlig came to America in 1859. Joining with a bookbinder, Otto Meister, he opened a small shop to make boxes. Starting with equipment consisting of a cobbler's knife to cut and score cardboard into box blanks and wooden frames on which to form the blanks into boxes, they initiated a business, which has provided packaging materials to their customers for over 136 years. During that time the company moved four times in the first thirty years of operation. It moved into the E. Franklin location in 1896 and stayed in that building (which served as a Confederate Army Hospital) for 100 years. In 1996, the company moved to its new modern 110,000 square foot facility. The Franklin Street location is now a historical building and the Pohlig name is part of the historical register.

Starting in the days following the Civil War when materials of the trade: cardboard, cloth and glue were difficult to obtain, Pohlig has been instrumental in providing packing to its customers in the grater Richmond area. Prior to 1910, cardboard was made from straw, which gave the board the aroma of new-mown hay. While some equipment had been developed to cut, score, and form the board into boxes, hardly any equipment was available for applying glue to the outside cover papers for the boxes. Paintbrushes were used for this purpose. It was not until the 1910 to 1920, that Pohlig Bros. had its first machine to for gluing paper around boxes.

Prior to the First World War, Pohlig supplied boxes to almost all types of box users. During WW I, thousands of pillboxes were made on these new gluing machines and shipped to United States Army and Navy. Following the War, tobacco provided the largest impetus to growth. "Herbert Tareyton," "London Sports," "Atlantic Shorts," cigarettes made by the Falk Tobacco Company (forerunner of the American Tobacco Company) were packaged in Pohlig boxes.

In the late 1920's, development of machinery to automatically apply glue to paper emerged and gave the industry what was needed to grow out of the "cracker barrel" era. The break-through came none to soon. During World War II, Pohlig Bros. produced hundreds of thousands of rigid boxes for packaging and shipping all kinds of items to the Armed Forces.

Following the War. The supermarket concept of merchandising has spread from the grocery store to the department store and to all other merchandising outlets. Eye appeal and the ability to communicate to the consumer what is important about the product has become as important for the package as its ability to ship and contain the product. Through these times new materials have emerged to augment the package's role in attracting buyers: Coated boards, foil papers, blister and skin packaging, and color, color and more color. Pohlig Bros. has and continues to be on the cutting edge of what is ahead. Constantly investing in technology plus positioning itself to provide products and services to allow its customers to use packaging to enhance the value of their product, Pohlig Bros. looks forward to another Century of solid business success.