My memories of Durango begin as a student at Needham Elementary. Since then, there has been change.
In the mid and late 1950s, Indian dances on the point on the Fort Lewis College Mesa, the Strater’s Melodrama and the Spanish Trails Fiesta during a long weekend in August were just about the only forms of summertime entertainment in Durango. Skiing was only at Chapman Hill, or on a track through the trees adjacent to Coal Bank Hill. That was the mid and late 1950s.
There were no front-wheel-drive cars and only a few Jeeps had four-wheel-drive, so 12-year-old boys could earn quarters by pushing cars out of icy parking spaces and up the hill between Main and Second avenues during snowy winter days. In the spring and fall, sheep traveled through town on unpaved streets between winter and summer grazing.
The Durango Herald has been through some changes as well during Ballantine family ownership. The pace of change in communications in recent years has grown swift, but the Herald has met – and will continue to meet – the ongoing challenges.
In 1952, photos only occasionally appeared because the technology to properly reproduce them didn’t exist: images could easily be mostly black. In advertisements, sketches or drawings were used. Hot type, set by skilled Linotype operators and assembled by men in eyeshades who could read backwards, caused molten lead fumes. At the end of the press run, the type was melted down to be cast into new bars – which would be shaped into new lines of type for the next day. What that summer job – handling liquid lead in close quarters during its daily melting and casting cycle – did to my lungs and nervous system I don’t know, but it paid for my used ’57 Chevy.
When the Herald moved into its specially designed building in 1965, hot type was left behind. Offset had been developed, with modified typewriters and chest-high electric typesetters and a chemical process to apply ink to paper on the press. A big discovery: walled rooms to shield what had been an inky, noisy and hot production process from the rest of the newspaper were no longer necessary. So, after only a few weeks in the brand new building, out they came. With offset, the process was clean, quiet and cool, and the lack of walls greatly improved internal communication.
In spring 1995 came the shift to a morning paper, favored by both readers and advertisers. Now, a retailer’s ad had a full day’s exposure, and the news was today’s news all day. Gone with the change, unfortunately, were all the youth carriers who had earned some money and who had learned responsibility. A 4 to 6 a.m. delivery routine was too demanding.
In the summer of 1996 – 21 years ago – the Herald went online in a rudimentary fashion using future-thinking in-house talent and a high school student. The website attracted an audience which was distant, but small. Two years later, with the multi-day manhunt into Southeast Utah after the death of a Cortez police officer, visitor numbers soared, and stayed high. That is what electronic distribution makes possible.
WebDurango, which built sites for businesses, came in 2000.
In the fall of 1998, the Herald added Mondays to finally become a seven-day-a-week print publication.
In 1999, the two newspapers in Cortez were purchased and merged into one, and stories and advertising were shared between The Cortez Journal and the Herald.
In the following decade and a half, the papers developed a much larger electronic presence. Eventually, new stories and accompanying video and graphics were made available during 18 hours a day.
The purpose of this history, placed on top of a small backdrop of some of Durango’s past charms, is to lead into what is today’s significant new venture: continued timely news stories and opinion every day but with fewer days in print. Print on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and a weekend edition delivered on Saturday. And every day online.
The Herald’s ownership and employees have always cared about good writing and thought-provoking opinion, about reporting on land-use issues, water and city and county governments and how their decisions affect lives. And with effective advertising, helping retailers and professionals strengthen their businesses.
In recent years, it has heard from readers as to how valuable it is to have a reporter in Denver to provide some linkage between the Capitol and the heavily populated Front Range, where so much of the state’s decision making resides, and Southwest Colorado. That will continue.
As to quality, in most years, journalism contest judges like what they read. Readers have said so, too. We will work to continue those high standards.
No change is easy. None of us who can look back six or seven decades can adjust as easily to the pace of technological change as can our children and grandchildren.
We want you to continue to look forward to reading the Herald in its different delivery forms. Let us know what additions or adjustments you think are needed. A responsive and somewhat bold newspaper, which now has almost unlimited presentation space thanks to the internet, ought to be a force that helps make Durango and La Plata County even more livable.
Richard G. Ballantine, joined by his siblings, Elizabeth and William Ballantine and Helen Healy, and their nine children.
