Mancos, a small town in the southwestern corner of Colorado, is the gateway to Mesa Verde and the home of one of Colorado’s oldest newspapers, The Mancos Times, founded in 1893. In 1910, the newspaper enlarged to become The Mancos Times-Tribune and moved to a new fireproof concrete home on Grand Avenue, where it served as an office and printing shop until the 1970s. Closed and forgotten for almost 50 years, the Mancos building was recently restored through an unusual partnership led by Weitzman School of Design professors Frank Matero and Matt Neff with community leaders and a grant from the Colorado Historical Society beginning in 2013.
Today, its original rare American Cranston printing press is finally back in action along with smaller hand presses and a vast collection of original type, image blocks, and all the appurtenances of a traditional letterpress print shop. Resurrected as The Mancos Common Press, referencing its connection to Penn’s Common Press, it is now print art rather than newspapers that is being produced by artists coming from far and wide.
Ten years later, The Mancos Common Press is a hub of activity with an artist-in-residence program; studio courses in relief printmaking; and the use of the Mancos Common Press as a community art center. As the town continues to promote itself as an arts community and tourist destination, this new enterprise has contributed to the local and regional development of arts education and has helped promote cultural tourism in town.
By focusing on the preservation of buildings as a catalyst for positive change, the town and the Press have now joined forces on perhaps one of the most significant new projects to rise on Grand Avenue in a century—The Mancos Commons—a 4,000 square foot, two-story mixed-use development including three single-bedroom affordable housing units, a large workshop space for the Press, and retail and office space.
Read more at the Weitzman School of Design.
