The Farmington Daily Times and a history of change, 1890-2024 (2024)

News is history in the making, recorded in real time.

And, when taking a long view back, these records can reveal some coincidences dare we say twists of fate? If only decades later.

This business of reporting real-time history in the making has a long record in the region. Whether any of the ancient cultures that preceded us had any means to report local happenings is unknown, it is clear that by the late 1800s people in this area certainly did.

A brief cruise through the newspaper microfiche archives of the Aztec Museum reveals two early publications. These include the San Juan Times, published 1891-1900, and The Santa Lulu Independent, a weekly established in 1888. Only one copy of that publication, issue No. 2, survives locally and in the Library of Congress.

According to the Library of Congress, six newspapers were launched in San Juan County from the late 1890s to 1905, but only two survived. The origin of the Farmington Daily Times is traced to the Junction City Times, a weekly established in 1890. The area between the San Juan and Animas Rivers, Junction City was part of a region characterized by irrigated farming. However, Junction City lost the competition for county seat and was eventually absorbed by the town of Farmington. In 1893, the weekly paper moved to Farmington, where it remained through June 1, 1900. It was succeeded by the Farmington Times on June 8, 1900.

It is a time-honored tradition in the news industry for newspapers to change ownership. That certainly has happened in the greater San Juan County area.

In 1903, the Farmington Times merged with the Farmington Hustler (a weekly established in 1901) and became, predictably, the Farmington Times-Hustler. The Hustler publisher was Chas. E. Starr. From 1903 until 1949, publishers Butler & Prewitt ran the Farmington Times-Hustler.

After World War II, young men were returning to make their mark on the nation, and the newspaper game in New Mexico began to heat up.

Lincoln O’Brien, originally from Boston, was one of these young men.

“An Unimportant Book – The Story of My Life” is O’Brien’s autobiography, published in 1981 and available for sale at the San Juan County Historical Society.

In “An Unimportant Book,” he describes firsthand his newspaper adventures after he returned from service as a military attaché in Brazil during the war. Before then, he had graduated Harvard in 1929 and Harvard Law School in 1932. After graduation, he followed in his father’s footsteps and worked for newspapers. An impressive inheritance from an aunt in 1934 allowed him to begin to start buying newspapers, first in Massachusetts, then in New Hampshire.

After the end of the war, he returned to the newspaper business in New Hampshire.

Then came the move West.

“The Army had shown us that there were many places in the world better to live than New England. I mean places where the people were friendlier, the climate better and the economic opportunity greater,” he wrote in his book.

O’Brien began scouting around in four mountain states (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah) for newspapers that were up for sale that could be bought at what for him would be a reasonable rate. He found two for sale in New Mexico and one in Colorado.

“The one in Colorado was Durango, and I was tempted but I thought it would be wise to keep all my papers in one state, as, after all, my resources for down payments were not unlimited,” he wrote.

In June 1949 O’Brien bought the weekly Times-Hustler in Farmington from Orval Rickets and G.L. Butler.

“We kept the name Farmington Times, adding daily to it when we went daily. The Butler crowd kept the name Hustler, as in Hustler Press. We went daily on Aug. 1, 1949, and in January of 1950 we took first prize for typography at the New Mexico Press Association,” he wrote.

In the 1950s, O’Brien owned one-third of the daily newspapers in the state: Farmington, Gallup, Las Vegas, Tucumcari and Artesia. All told, O’Brien owned eight newspapers through the years.

As the years passed, O’Brien sold all his other publications, keeping only the Farmington Daily Times, where his family had made their home.

In fall 1980, O’Brien appointed his son, Eliot, as publisher of the paper and began to step back. The tumultuous father-and-son relationship between the two had been widely known. Lincoln O’Brien died in Farmington on July 2, 1992, at the age of 85.

In the years after his death, the newspaper’s publisher became more and more radicalized in his Christian belief. On Jan. 23, 1996, the Albuquerque Tribune published a story headlined “The Daily Gospel of Eliot O’Brien.”

“Eliot O’Brien is a prodigal son who inherited his father’s newspaper in Farmington and imbued it with his faith in Jesus and Pentecostal Christianity. ‘There has been more Christianity in the paper since I’ve become more and more radical in my beliefs,’ he says. ‘ … I decided to include someone who invented newspapers. Jesus Christ invented newspapers,” said Eliot O’Brien in the story, written by Jessie Milligan.

The in-depth article focused on the more extreme aspects of the Times under the younger O’Brien, including removing horoscopes and Halloween endorsem*nts, and editorials blasting other religions as pagan. Eliot O’Brien died in August 2011.

In June 2015, The Farmington Daily Times was acquired by Gannett, a company originally well-known for its newspaper USA Today, sometimes derisively called “McPaper.”

Under Gannett, the newspaper staff was cut beyond the bare bone. Mike Easterling became night editor in 2014; he became the general staff reporter after that position was cut. With so little staff, local news coverage dwindled. The decision was made to sell the newspaper, along with three others in the state.

On May 8, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that “Gannett’s sale of the papers comes as the Virginia-based chain works to cut costs amid a media landscape that has become more diffuse, with digital outlets and nontraditional sources providing more content. According to media reports, cuts at some New Mexico newspapers left newsrooms with one or no reporters.”

The Daily Times was one of those newspapers.

Three of the four New Mexico newspapers went to the owners of the Rio Grande Sun. The sale of The Daily Times to Ballantine Communications Inc. was finalized June 1. The Daily Times has been absorbed into Ballantine’s Tri-City Record, a now three times a week newspaper which began operations in the tricity area of Farmington, Aztec and Bloomfield in May 2023.

And here is where one of those coincidences or twists of fate, creeps in. Ballantine Communications is also the longtime owner of The Durango Herald, which began publication in 1881 under a variety of different names. This was the newspaper that Arthur and Morley Ballantine bought in 1952 after Lincoln O’Brien decided not to pursue it.

Despite the passing of The Daily Times name, the Tri-City Record will continue the time-honored tradition of reporting local news, and creating real-time history, for the greater Four Corners area.

“San Juan County and Farmington have a fascinating history of local journalism and newspapering that dates back to the late 1800's,” said John Blais, CEO and publisher of the Tri-City Record and Ballantine Communications. “Our newsroom and staff are excited to continue the great legacy of local reporting and community service that the previous 'newspapers of record' have provided.”

Editor’s note: Newspaper records and archives were valuable in the preparation of this article. In yet another one of those coincidences, journalist Debi Tracy Olsen worked as features editor at The Farmington Daily Times from 1988 to 1994, leaving the area for 28 years. She returned in 2022 and began freelancing for the Tri-City Record in May 2023, writing a weekly column, “This Week in Local History.”