| The New Mexican

9/12/2007 -

In the course of its 158-year history, The New Mexican has been published at many different locations in the center of Santa Fe. Early offices were in rental spaces on the Plaza itself. Later, the paper moved to Palace Avenue. These offices were later used by the Manhattan Project during the early days of government work at Los Alamos.

The New Mexican is located in two facilities in Santa Fe. The New Mexican is headquartered at 202 E. Marcy Street in the heart of downtown Santa Fe. Meanwhile, circulation offices and printing operations are housed at 1 New Mexican Plaza on Santa Fe's fast-growing south side, near the intersection of Cerrillos Road and Interstate 25.

The paper has had many owners. A few owners are known to us only because their names appeared briefly on the masthead. Others loom large in the history of New Mexico.

In 1849, The New Mexican’s first publishers, were E.T. Davies and W.E. Jones. The first edition had two pages in English and two in Spanish. The next surviving issue of the paper is from 1850, listing Ceran St. Vrain as publisher. A trapper and trader, St. Vrain was an associate of Kit Carson and politically active during New Mexico’s early territorial days.

In 1850, members of families that are still prominent in New Mexico — Álvarez, Armijo, Chávez, Gallegos, Otero, Peréa and Larragoite — each contributed $100 to buy a printing press, which was brought from the United States to the New Mexico territory.

In its early years, the paper called itself a weekly publication, but scanty records suggest it was not always published that frequently. The newspaper’s offices burned in 1888, destroying early issues. The few papers remaining are from private collections.

The first issue under the ownership of William Manderfield was published in 1863. He bought the paper from Charles P. Clever, who had purchased it from Dr. Charles Lieb.

By 1864, Thomas Tucker was listed as co-owner. Under Manderfield, the newspaper was lively, political and opinionated. Manderfield was a successful merchant as well as a publisher.

The paper became a daily in 1867, when the telegraph line was completed. After a decade of daily issues, publication was suspended because of lack of funds. In 1880, publication resumed under ownership of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. Manderfield was listed as vice president.

In that year, the newspaper dropped its Spanish-language pages and began printing El Nuevo Mejicano as a separate publication. This Spanish newspaper continued until 1958, often under joint ownership with The Santa Fe New Mexican.

In 1881, Manderfield and Tucker left the paper and E.B. Purcell of Manhattan, Kan., became the owner. He lasted as owner until 1883, when he announced he would “withdraw the paper, ” it being “sufficient to say that the amount of revenue derived from the community was insufficient to sustain the paper on a respectable basis.” Subscribers could get their money refunded at the Second National Bank.

Roughly a week later, the Albuquerque Review moved to Santa Fe and its owner, W.H. Bailhache, revived the Santa Fe paper. Then another new owner, C.B. Hayward, took over and changed the paper to an evening publication. Within two years, he sold it to G.W. Collier, who had come from Ohio. That ownership lasted seven years, until a group of Democrats bought the paper, naming George Cross as editor.

Four years later, in 1897, the editor retired and Republican Max Frost bought the publication. Frost had controlled the paper’s editorial and business operations for four years under its previous Republican owners. With Frost in charge, news of gold strikes, floods, votes on prohibition and statehood debates enlivened The Santa Fe New Mexican.

Frost retired in 1909 and assistant editor Paul Walter took over. Walter helped found the Museum of New Mexico and later became president of the First National Bank.

Walter, as well as Salomón Luna and Sen. Holm Bursum, were stockholders of the paper. Luna was a rancher, millionaire, banker and prominent Republican, a player in New Mexico’s struggle for statehood and one of the authors of the state constitution. Holm Bursum was notorious for his efforts to privatize Indian reservations. He was the author of controversial and finally unsuccessful legislation that would have denied Pueblo Indians ownership of most of their tribal lands.

For much of its history, the newspaper had been printed in rental quarters on the Plaza. At this point, it moved into its own building on Palace Avenue.

In 1912, Bronson Cutting came to New Mexico for health reasons. Because of his political aspirations, he bought the newspaper. Dana Johnson, whom journalists still admire for his dynamic leadership, was editor. Brian Boru Dunn, a legendary storyteller whose portrait hangs in La Fonda, briefly worked as city editor.

The publication recorded the early days of the Santa Fe art colony, the growth of Santa Fe style, World War I and the Depression.

Cutting was a New York transplant who built up a powerful political machine, dominating the state’s Republican and Democratic parties. In 1927, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate. In his 1934 bid for re-election to the Senate, Cutting defeated powerful Congressman Dennis Chávez.

The next year, Cutting was killed in an airplane crash. His friend Jesús Baca inherited the newspaper. Two years later, he sold it to the Kansas newspaper chain of O.S. Stauffer.

Republican Frank Rand bought the paper in 1940. Under his ownership, the offices at 202 E. Marcy St. were built. He then sold The New Mexican to  Robert M. McKinney, father of current owner Robin Martin, at the end of 1948.

Robert McKinney was an active Democrat. He served as ambassador to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna and as U.S. ambassador to Switzerland. He held presidential appointments under every chief executive from Truman to Nixon.

He ran the paper through the state’s economic boom of the 1950s and the protest years of the 1960s. Discouraged by rising newsprint prices, gas shortages and labor troubles, he sold the paper in 1976 to Gannett Co., even at that time the largest newspaper conglomerate in the country.

Unhappy because the newspaper chain had breached his management contract and ignored his wishes to direct news coverage, he sued for return of the paper. After a 13-week jury trial and appeals that lasted years, The New Mexican returned to family ownership in 1989. Robert McKinney became editor and publisher again, a role he actively filled until his death in 2001 at age 90.