Here’s Where Massachusetts License Plates Are Made

Millions of people crowd into tiny little Massachusetts, calling the Bay State home, and many of them own motor vehicles that require license plates to operate on the back roads and main streets of the Commonwealth.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) says, "With an estimated population of over 6.79 million Massachusetts residents, about 80% (over 5.42 million) are of driving age (16 and over), while about 70% of all residents (4.75 million) are licensed drivers."

MassDOT says, "Within the City of Boston, the entire Central Artery/Tunnel project processes about 536,000 vehicles per weekday."

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"The single highest traffic volume location in the state is the I-93/I-95 (128) Interchange in Woburn and Reading," says MassDot. "This crossing of two busy highways processes around 375,000 vehicles per weekday."

And that doesn't include the cars, buses, motorcycles, trucks, and other vehicles in the rest of Massachusetts – most all requiring two license plates.

That's a lot of traffic. That's a lot of cars. That's a lot of license plates.

So where do all the license plates come from? Who makes them?

Do you know anyone who leaves home each morning to go to work in a license plate manufacturing plant? Have you seen a license plate manufacturing plant while traveling in the Bay State?

Joe DeFelice writes for the Canton Citizen, "Massachusetts license plates are made in prison."

DeFelice writes, "If you ever wondered about Massachusetts auto license plates, you may be interested to know that they are all made by prisoners at the MCI-Cedar Junction prison in Walpole, where they have been making them since 1920."

The Canton Citizen says, "Approximately 4.8 million Massachusetts license plates are currently in circulation."

However, MCI-Cedar Junction closed last year, so where are they made now? It's has to be somewhere, because it seems Massachusetts has a license plate for just about everything these days.