Aspen Times

Infobox Newspaper
name = Aspen Times


caption =
type = Daily newspaper
format =
foundation = 1881
(as "Aspen Weekly Times")
ceased publication =
price =
owners = Swift Communications
publisher = Jenna Weatherred
editor = Bob Ward
language =
political =
circulation = 11,500
headquarters = 310 E. Main St.
Aspen, CO, 81611, U.S.
ISSN =
website = [http://www.aspentimes.com/ http://www.aspentimes.com/]

The "Aspen Times" is an 11,500-circulation, 7-day-a-week newspaper in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado with a history dating back to 1881.

History

The Aspen Weekly Times' first issue was published April 23, 1881 when Aspen was a silver mining town, and the purpose of the newspaper was to bring news about the outside world to miners. The original owner was D.H. Waite & Co., who sold the paper to B. Clark Wheeler in 1885. Within months, Wheeler converted the paper into a daily. Wheeler was a promoter and had various business interests. In 1880, Wheeler changed the name of the city from Ute City to Aspen. In the 1890s, the paper returned to a weekly publication schedule as the population of Aspen dropped due to the bust in silver prices.

In 1956, Bil Dunaway, a U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division veteran, bought The Aspen Times, and over the next 35 years would amass a local media empire. At one time, he owned KSNO-AM 1260, Aspen's cable TV company and its only newspaper. Downvalley, he also owned Glenwood Springs, Colorado radio station KMTS-FM 99.1, the Valley Journal in Carbondale, Colorado, The Rifle Telegram and Climbing magazine. Dunaway was a crusading newspaper editor as well as a world-class ski racer and a prolific mountainer.

A Daily Again

In 1988, Dunaway hired Dave Price to create a daily edition of the Aspen Times. Price had previously been a reporter at the Aspen Daily News and news director at KSNO and KTYE radio stations. After months of planning, the "'Aspen Times Daily'" was launched on November 9, 1988 with Price as its first editor. The first issue came out the morning after a major local election, and the headline on the inaugural issue was "Dems sweep county."

In 1990, Price covered the arrest of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson on sex assault charges. The charges were dropped after Price reported that the alleged victim was an undercover agent who fabricated the assault claim in order to give the district attorney a pretext for searching Thompson's Woody Creek ranch for drugs. Thompson reprinted some of Price's stories in his 1990 book "Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream."

In 1992, Dunaway sold the Times to a group led by Loren Jenkins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post. Jenkins improved the newspaper by redesigning it and bringing in national and international news and cultural reporting and reviews from the services of the New York Times and the Washington Post. He also gave the newspaper an editorial edge that sought to slow down rampant development and preserve the local values and nature that had always made the Roaring Fork valley special. Jenkins left town in 1996, taking the post of foreign desk editor at National Public Radio.

In 1995, the ownership of the paper changed again, and this time the group included as many as nine investors by some reports. Among them were local businessmen George Stranahan, Michael McVoy and longtime Times writer and novelist Andy Stone.

On December 1, 1999, the Times was sold to its current owner, Swift Newspapers of Reno, Nevada. Swift stopped printing the paper in Aspen when it opened a new press facility in Gypsum, Colorado, on I-70.

The Aspen Times printed both weekly and daily editions until 2004, when the weekly was converted into a Sunday edition. At that point, the Times Daily went from Monday-Friday to seven days a week. The word "Daily" was dropped from the title of the daily paper in the 1990s.

In 2005, Swift purchased the Aspen Times building at 310 E. Main St. from Dunaway for $2.3 million. The Times moved into the building, which is next door to the historic Hotel Jerome, in 1905.

Colorado Mountain News Media

Newspapers owned by Colorado Mountain News Media, a unit of Swift Communications of Reno, Nevada.

Bargain Hunter | The Citizen Telegram of Rifle, Colorado | Eagle Valley Enterprise | Grand Junction, Colorado Free PressLeadville Chronicle | Mountain Weekly of Vail, Colorado | Post Independent of Glenwood Springs, ColoradoSnowmass Sun | Summity County Journal | Summit Daily News | Vail Daily | Vail Trail
The Valley Journal in Carbondale, Colorado

External links

* [http://www.aspentimes.com/ Aspen Times official web site]

* [http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20051015/ASPENWEEKLY05/110150030&SearchID=7324185701279 Profile of Bil Dunaway, Aspen Times publisher 1956-1992]

* [http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20060216/COLUMN/102160018&SearchID=7324185805908 "I have a hero? Well, yes, I do." Former publisher Andy Stone's tribute to Bil Dunaway]

* [http://www.aspenhistory.org/aorffrm.html?=aorfch1.html "Aspen on The Roaring Fork" by Frank Wentworth]

* [http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20020722/NEWS/207210011&SearchID=7324185918054 Recent history of Aspen Times given in longer article about change in publishers]

* [http://www.aspenhistory.org/wttimes.html Aspen Historical Society downtown etour, the Aspen Times Building]