The Estancia News returns!

In October of 1904 the Estancia News printed its first edition. The Estancia News merged with the Estancia Herald in 1912 to become the Estancia News-Herald. The Estancia News-Herald would be “devoted to giving the news–living up to its name and boosting for Torrance County and every town and neighborhood in it.”

According to the Library of Congress:

“The Estancia News-Herald spanned four pages and included local, state, and national news. The towns of Manzano, Willard, Stanley, McIntosh, Mountainair, and Moriarty, New Mexico, received particular attention. Newsworthy items regarding crime, politics, baseball, weather, and the public schools appeared frequently.
Advertisements included feed stores, meat markets, banks, lumberyards, pharmacies, tobacco, general merchandise, and other local businesses. Later issues feature advertisements for Dodge Brothers Motor Cars, Ford, and other automobiles. Each issue included a professional directory of doctors, attorneys, and dentists, as well as a section for legal notices. The Estancia News-Herald also reprinted sections of literary works. For example, the February 27, 1919 issue included a selection of Gunner Depew by Albert N. Depew, a book that recounted the author’s experiences in World War I.”

Research for this article was unable to locate copies of the Estancia News-Herald after 1921. Many can attest to the migration to larger cities since that time. The urbanization of America brought with it technological advancement and prosperity. Prosperity led to pride, and pride has led our country down the path of moral decay. Cities have become intolerable for many who now seek refuge in our rural communities.

In its first edition, the Estancia News documented another migration to this valley, albeit under different circumstances:

“In the long years past, the “early settler,” in crossing the almost trackless desert to secure supplies from the mountains, made a sojourn of several days for rest and recuperation at the nicely known springs – the wanderer’s Estancia. The whole valley embracing an area some fifty miles across and seventy-five in length, became known as the Estancia Valley. As the years wore on it was found that the whole valley was sub-irrigated and hence the fine pasturage and quick growth of native grasses. That such a valley should exist in the heart of the great Rockies at an elevation of 6,000 ft. above sea level is almost incredible, but such is the case nevertheless….
…By the annulling of the Bartolomeo Baca Grant this vast tract receded to the U.S. Government and was thrown open for settlement under the Homestead Laws. Several townships have already been surveyed and applications are now pending for the balance. Homeseekers are coming almost daily, being drawn by the fertility of the soil, the ease of securing water for irrigation and splendid climate. Although in the latitude of northern Alabama and South Carolina, the climate is free from extreme heat, being tempered by an altitude of about 6,000 feet. An abundance of water is secured by sinking wells to a depth of from ten to fifty feet. An attempt has been made near Estancia to secure artesian water, but at a depth of 320 feet the tools became lodged. The water, in the well stands within four feet of the surface of the ground and pumping has not altered it perceptibly.”

While the modern-day migration of urbanites to rural communities is certainly motivated in part by the interest in farming and ranching, families are also coming in search of moral refuge. If the past century has taught us one thing, it is that our communities must be fortified against the moral decay that creeps in through our schools, our institutions, our government bodies, and our media. It is the desire of those who support the return of this publication, the Estancia News, that it work to support our communities to this end.