<\/p>\n
In the back of a carport, Larry Hauser pointed to a dust-covered relic weighing in at several thousand pounds.<\/p>\n
It had been sitting there for 20 years, and on Friday, Jan. 9, three people were excited to see the over 100-year-old piece of equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a Chandler and Price 10-by-15,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery press I worked for that had a job press, had one of these presses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hauser, 76, of Cortez, was showing the printing equipment to Jim Price, Tami Graham and Betsy Harrison, of the Mancos Common Press, a group dedicated to preserving the art of printing.<\/p>\n
Hauser said he collected the equipment in Dolores.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did a lot of small jobs, such as business envelopes and cards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Mancos group was excited to see the Chandler and Price because it looked like one in an old photograph of the Mancos press, which they recently got running again.<\/p>\n
Hauser glanced at the black-and-white photo.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, I have that chair too,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a linotype chair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside a storage room, Hauser held up the chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey would cut off the legs of the chairs and use them as linotype chairs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hauser was 14 years old when he got into the printing business. He retired from the Cortez Journal in 2002.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked after school and on weekends on a press just like this,\u201d Hauser said, pointing to a photograph of a flatbed press.<\/p>\n
Inside a storage room, Hauser had 50 cases of type, all different fonts, sizes and types.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy uncle was a pressman at the Cortez Journal before me,\u201d Hauser said. \u201cI came to his funeral, and Russ Brown offered me his job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hauser showed the group a variety of tools: a make-up rule, a container that held white kerosene for cleaning the press, a planing block, forms, height measurer, type sticks and blanks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to build a school for the printing and graphic arts,\u201d Law told Hauser. \u201cTo have someone who has used all these things in real life is priceless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Law told Hauser he needed to teach his trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids don\u2019t know what printing is,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n
Small hand presses, used to print cards, really got Harrison excited.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren can learn to use these,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hauser said the hand presses used to be part of the Dolores Star. Hauser bought the presses from Don Ripley, who bought them from Larry Pleasant.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody knows this stuff anymore,\u201d Law said.<\/p>\n
Hauser also said he had the operating manual somewhere of the Cranston Press, the large press inside the Mancos Times building, which was recently donated to the Mancos Common Press by the Ballantine family.<\/p>\n
Hauser said he would donate his printing relics to the Mancos Common Press and felt good that the art of printing will continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cA press like that is what I learned to run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Now the tricky part comes, how to get the large press, Hauser nicknamed \u201cThe Snapper\u201d out of the carport and into the Mancos Times Building.<\/p>\n
As far as what has happened to the large press that actually printed the Dolores Star all those years ago, there is no word, it would have weighed two or three times that of \u201cThe Snapper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was common for papers to have these smaller presses for smaller jobs,\u201d Hauser said.<\/p>\n
Rob Carrigan, a former Dolores resident, who would get paid a half-cent to fold a Dolores Star as it rolled off the press in Dolores in the \u201960s, has been looking for it and was excited to hear that Hauser might have it, but figured it was one of the smaller presses.<\/p>\n
The last he heard, he wrote in a column, is that it was loaded on a truck and headed for New Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will turn up,\u201d Carrigan wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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