SAGUACHE — As dry leaves scratched at the town’s streets, 73-year-old Saguache Crescent publisher Dean Coombs hunched over his keyboard behind a pot of gray molten metal on his 1920 linotype machine, typing news for his readers: trustees were about to jack up water bills. Dean Coombs lays out an issue of The Saguache Crescent on his linotype machine in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) He got up periodically to adjust the machine, one of the last in operation, a multi-ton cross between a typewriter and a foundry, complete with belts, gears, and chutes. His keystrokes triggered a rattling chain reaction that converts the 535-degree mix of antimony, tin, and lead into lines of type for stamping words onto paper. On Tuesday mornings, Coombs heads to the back of his canary-yellow building on the main street of Saguache (population 550) and fires up a 1915 printing press — work he began at age 12 — which churns out 380 copies of the Crescent. Saguache residents say they couldn’t live without it. And Coombs, who periodically doubles as a plumber for the people he serves, sees no reason to switch to modern digital production and electronic delivery to smartphones. “It’s harder to change than to keep doing the work,” he said. His phone is a landline, upgraded a few years ago from rotary dial, and an old TV plays vintage game shows as he works, often until 9 p.m. The Crescent remains the paper of record in 3,168-square-mile Saguache County, located in south-central Colorado at the northern end of the San Luis Valley It is enduring at a time when other news companies in the valley, and around the nation, are collapsing. Five weekly newspapers here that relied on more modern methods merged last summer into one, the San Luis Valley Journal. Nationwide, the number of newspapers has decreased by 3,500 since 2005, leaving 5,419, according to the latest State of Local News survey conducted at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Many of the newspapers dying, at the rate of about two per week, are weeklies like the Crescent. The decline leaves one in seven Americans in “news deserts” with limited or no access to local news, typically in low-income rural areas like this. And in 212 U.S. counties, including six in Colorado (Cheyenne, Conejos, Dolores, Lincoln, Mineral, and Prowers), there’s no local newspaper, the survey found. The yellow storefront of The Saguache Crescent is lit by the afternoon sun in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) Local focus The Crescent’s annual revenues, around $60,000, cannot sustain reporters to investigate murky matters or keep residents up on international news. Instead, Coombs publishes news written by unpaid contributors, along with government notices, such as the one about water rates, a precautionary fire ban on federal land, and recommendations to dispose of animal carcasses properly as reintroduced wolves approach the valley. “In an era when we have pretty much lost the local drug store, the shoe repair shop and the doctors who make house calls, it’s comforting for folks in a community to have Dean Coombs as both town crier and old friend,” said longtime journalism ethicist Bob Steele, a retired public radio board member and scholar at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a news industry think tank and training center. 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Coombs’ grandparents, Charles and Mary, bought the newspaper in 1917 and relied initially on her hand-setting skills. They bought one of German American inventor Ottmar Mergenthaler’s revolutionary linotype machines in 1920 to speed production. When Coombs was an infant, they tethered his cradle to an arm of the press, letting it rock him as they worked. After learning the business, Coombs left for college at Adams State, then worked at an antiques store in Houston before returning to the valley as “just a poor hippie,” he said. The Linotype machine Dean Coombs uses to produce The Saguache Crescent at the newspaper in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) His father, Ivan, built up the enterprise. On the day after Christmas in 1978, he stepped out as the press was running, heading home on a bicycle to change clothes. He went down, dead at age 62, of a heart attack. It fell to Coombs and his mother, Marie, to take over. Coombs noticed other news companies abandoning linotype machines. He bought up 4,200 pounds of spare parts, which he has stored in drawers. His father had already purchased a backup linotype machine. The Crescent still thrived, reaching a circulation of around 770 with revenues peaking in 1986 at around $90,000. Coombs says he’s no journalist. But he recognizes the role of a free press in democracy. “I got into this because my father died, not because I was sitting in my dorm room dreaming about Pulitzers,” he said. Dean Coombs troubleshoots the linotype machine he uses to lay out issues of The Saguache Crescent in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. The machines are so rare, there are very few people left who can run, service and repair them. Coombs has become a de facto specialist, saying he has hobbyists from across the country contact him for advice on how to fix linotype machines. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) The main costs include newsprint — $6,000 for 120,000 sheets every four years — and mail delivery to 340 subscribers. When the U.S. Postal Service ended its two-century practice of reducing rates for news publications, that weekly bill shot up from $8 to $188, he said. Revenues come from ads, $ 20-a-year subscriptions, single-copy sales (35 cents), and mostly the fees the government pays to publish required legal notices. History Crescent contributors submit their news stories, sometimes handwritten, through a slot in the front of the building. They come from writers like Bill Hazard, a retired high school mathematics teacher descended from farmers and ranchers who works in the cemetery keeping burial records and as the groundskeeper. Hazard has reviewed the records on Colorado cannibalism suspect Alfred Packer, who, after his prospecting party perished, wandered into Saguache in 1874 seeking food and a horse. Town residents grew suspicious after they heard Packard’s survival tale and noticed he had extra wallets, guns, and knives. Hazard told how he was jailed in Saguache and escaped. Crescent news stories over the years, collected in the Saguache museum, documented regional history. In a recent edition, Hazard wrote of a campaign by local Republicans in 1880 who set out to install a flagpole 100 feet high, taller than the flagpole Democrats had erected. They crossed the valley to Crestone, where they found a tree and hauled it back to Saguache. Old photos obtained through History Colorado showed the flagpole and a huge flag, which stood for a decade until the wind blew it down, said Hazard, who grew up with Coombs. “We remember the past. We remember the good times. We want to keep that going,” Hazard said. “We’re just waiting for the next story to wash us away.” And many residents of the valley, he added, “just don’t want to read more stuff online.” An issue of The Saguache Crescent is printed in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) Staying strong Saguache leaders have embraced the newspaper. “It has held our community together. It is part of our heritage,” Saguache County Commissioner and 38-year resident Liza Marron said. “We need to have a newspaper.” Behind the counter at the town hall, deputy clerk Tina Sanchez, a lifelong resident who gives Crescent subscriptions to her three children each year, said the Crescent feels superior to the “Sagtowner” Facebook page and other social media, even though these can be useful on time-sensitive matters. “I love it. It is comforting,” Sanchez said recently, getting ready for a town holiday feast. One-fifth of residents lack cell phones, she noted, and residents typically avoid spending any more time than necessary on computer screens. Sanchez acknowledged that news of the water rate hike, by $8 a month, will rile some residents — a necessary town expense, she said, to be able to repay a $3 million loan for replacing a water line that has been leaking 18 million gallons a year. “We’ve gotten away from reading. We use phones, tablets. But I like the touch. It means more quality for us in our town.” Dean Coombs produces an issue of The Saguache Crescent in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) Staying the course Lights in the Crescent building often stay on after the bank, post office, pub, Oasis restaurant, grocery, and supply store close. Photos on the walls memorialize Coombs’ mother, father, the cat lost in a fire, and skiers carving turns through a sparkling snowfield. Items around the office hold stories. A long-gone friend placed a small chunk of wood above the workbench more than 50 years ago, saying, ” ‘I’m going to see how long it stays there.’ And I said, ‘Why would it ever move?’ ” Coombs said. He’s healthy, estimating he can handle the heavy lifting aspects for at least another decade. Icy winter winds buffet the front door, and the single-digit cold cuts through. But the linotype machine generates heat, he said. “I’m not going to give up on this newspaper. I don’t know why. I’m not a person of change.” Historical photos and cut-out cartoon strips are pinned to the shelves holding various stamps and molds used in the production of The Saguache Crescent in Saguache on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Spetzler/Special to The Denver Post) Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter. ...read more read less