to Washington, D.C. Some women were eventually employed at the coining presses. The women worked from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily – not long hours – but the working conditions were probably unbearable by modern standards. New Orleans has a warm, wet climate. The process of adjusting, however, required the utmost attention to the scales' balance, and the slightest draft could upset it. The draft could also carry off the silver dust from the coin planchets the women would file. For these reasons the windows and doors were almost always kept shut, resulting in a very hot working environment. Workers relied on water coolers to provide relief from the heat and avoid dehydration. The women mint employees were judged to enjoy better working conditions than many other American women workers in the late nineteenth century. The mint in the 20th and 21st centuries Closure By the early twentieth century, the U.S. Treasury had mints operating in New Orleans, Denver, San Francisco, and the main center in Philadelphia, which more than met the demand for minted money. In 1904, the government ceased the minting of the silver dollar, which accounted for the bulk of the coinage the New Orleans branch had been producing since 1879. In 1909 Treasury officials declined to appropriate funds for the mint's operation, effectively halting subsequent minting activity in New Orleans. In 1911, the New Orleans Mint was formally decommissioned and the machinery was transferred to the main U. S. Mint facility in Philadelphia,. Twenty years later, in 1930, Governor Huey Long would rail against this loss when he ran for the office of U.S. Senator against incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell. In a circular distributed by his campaign to the citizens of New Orleans, Long listed the loss of the Mint as the very first of many complaints against Ransdell's lengthy service record in the Senate. Long went on to win the election, although he did not take office until his term as governor expired in 1932. At some point, however, the original New Orleans machinery was lost, and, at present, has not been located. Transformation After the mint closed, it performed a variety of functions for the Federal government. It was first downgraded to an assay office for the U.S. Treasury as it had been from 1876 to 1879. Then, in 1932, the assay office closed and the building was converted into a Federal prison,