Entry No. 12 — the Durango file — filed under: art-immersive
Mancos Common Press
“They boarded it up in 1970 — press, type, newspapers and all. It waited forty years.”
When the Mancos Times-Tribune left in 1970, somebody just boarded up the storefront — the 1890 Cranston press, drawers of metal type, and a century of newspapers all still inside. The town pried it open in 2013 and found a print shop frozen mid-sentence. Penn preservationists restored the room to its 1911 photographs, and now it runs again: the eight-foot Cranston still pulls full newspaper-size sheets, and workshops put your hands on type that waited forty years in the dark.
The move: Book a letterpress workshop for two, set a line in the shop's original metal type, and pull a print to take home.
📍 Before you go It is the restored storefront at 135 W Grand Avenue on Mancos's short main street, with easy street parking out front; the 2024 Mancos Commons addition connects behind it with extra studio space. There are no drop-in hours — tours and workshops run by appointment and scheduled classes, so email through the website before driving out. Mancos sits about thirty minutes west of Durango, and the Mesa Verde entrance is another ten minutes on, so the two pair naturally.
- 📍 Mancos
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 135 W Grand Ave, Mancos, CO 81328
Hours: Added 2026-06-11 — confirm current hours before you go.
⚠ Seasonal or scheduled — always check before you go.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Proof: source 1 · source 2 · source 3
last checked: 2026-06-11