It’s hard to believe, but the Aspen Daily News turned 30 this month.
Founders Dave Danforth, Lee Duncan and Mark Shaw began this paper on July 1, 1978, on what they say was a lark. Stringing together stories only a few sentences long or even shorter, they slapped their work on a double-sided single piece of paper and scrambled around town delivering what was at the time the town’s only daily “newspaper.”
With white space to fill, they even invented a few bogus ads that helped frame the news on each side of the publication. Ever heard of Chico’s Tacos, The Undiwear Shop or John’s Hot Stew? Never had anyone else in Aspen until the inaugural edition of the Daily News.
“There were a few people who called and asked, ‘Where is this place John’s Hot Stew? I’ve been looking for it and gotten nowhere,’” Danforth remembers. “We didn’t know what we were doing. We said we wouldn’t last very long. We were just having fun.”
Over the years, the Daily News evolved and it regressed. Initially it was published six days a week. Then when off-season hit, it was scaled back to three. (The word “almost” was even scribbled before the word “Daily” in many old editions.) That back and forth went on for a couple of years until eventually the paper was published six days a week with regularity.
Eventually it morphed into the full-blown, seven-day-a-week paper you’re holding today.
And, as the paper grew, so did the obstacles.
For years, the pasted up flats (the actual pages that would be transferred onto plates and printed at the press) for this paper — and, later, computer discs — were handed over to a RFTA bus driver late at night, every night. The driver would wheel the flats (or discs) down to Basalt, where a pressman would be waiting at a bus stop to retrieve them and drive them to our pressroom nearby. This went on until just a few years ago when we finally figured out how to deliver it electronically. It’s amazing the paper was never interfered with on its nightly bus rides.
But equally incredible is that 30 years later, the Aspen Daily News is still here — in a two-newspaper town no less — and stronger than ever. That’s not to say we’re perfect (far from it) but we have stuck to the paper’s roots and followed our founders’ lead of having fun.
— Troy Hooper
