Brief by Central Staff
Media – May 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Marie Coombs, who spent most of her long life at the Saguache Crescent, died March 25 in Salida.
She was 87, and started at the newspaper when she was a teenager after her family bought the business. When her father died in 1935, she became its editor and worked at the paper until a few years ago.
To quote from the March 28 Crescent, “Marie will be best remembered in Saguache for running the Crescent Linotype machine. She set type from her teens until the late ’90s. Working into her ’80s and the unique status of the Crescent put Marie in the spotlight on numerous occasions and in several venues — books, magazines, newspaper articles, and television.”
Among the magazine articles was one by Lynda La Rocca in the October, 1995, edition of this magazine; it’s on the web at www.coloradocentralmagazine.com/archive/cc1995/00200261.htm
The Crescent is the last newspaper in Colorado (and perhaps the United States) to be produced the Benjamin Franklin way with lead type and a sheet-fed press.
