Signed, Sealed and Delivered

So many lovely/loving cards! So much fun at our very successful fundraising Valentine printing event.

It was hosted by Depot president Jason Wedekind of Genghis Kern and Depot board member Cara Jo Knapp of KnappDesignCo

With their help, and with Depot printers Tom Parson and Ian Van Mater (and with Bryan Dahlberg documenting it all), the guests printed their one-of-a-kinds cards. Here are just a few…

And also signed..sealed…our grant from the State Historical Fund! Their support is so important, and so is the 25% match we were able to raise from our donors. Thank you! Now major rehab work can continue on the upper historical level.  To get the rooms empty so our contractors can work, we have a storage pod in place (any strong arms want to volunteer to help with the move? Email info@letterpressdepot.org)

We truly are grateful for the $83,000 raised. But we still have a ways to go to reach our capital campaign goal so we can get the whole building finished and open for you. We always appreciate your donations. Any questions, call/text 720-480-5358 or write info@letterpressdepot.org

Watch for a printing event around St. Patrick’s Day!

Depot year in pictures

We were excited to see so many of you at printing events this year. And we were touched by how many of you also donated to help us get our Depot home in shape for occupancy. Thank you. You still have a few minutes to make a 2024 donation (although of course we will happily accept them in 2025 as well😉). As always, we are grateful to the State Historical Fund for believing in and supporting our project.

See you in 2025! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and NEW** on BlueSky. Email info@letterpressdepot.org or call/text 720-4805358 anytime.

GRATEFUL

Our capital campaign is chugging along, thanks to all of you who donated recently. And wow, with all our efforts this year, we have reached our first goal of $83,000 – that was the amount needed to activate our grant from the State Historical Fund! With these funds, construction can start on the deteriorated parts of our Depot home. We are beyond grateful for longtime supporters and new donors who made this happen. And to History Colorado for recognizing the importance of saving this iconic building.

But like the little engine that could, we can’t stop here. We now are pushing towards our overall goal—another $217,000 to finish the entire building and get occupancy. Once we have that, we will have workshops, exhibits, community events. We can welcome in everyone from kids to seniors, as they learn the joy of letterpress printing. We will show off presses that told the stories of the West.  So if you missed out on giving earlier, we always are open for donations. 

Questions? Ideas for others to ask for donations? Email info@letterpressdepot.org, call/text 720-480-5358. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X and just now! BlueSky.

It's the Day!

We’ve raised $52,000 of the $83,000 needed to match our wonderful State Historical Fund grant. (And with that grant and our great supporters we’re almost 60% towards our capital campaign goal!) Special gifts appreciated, but very dollar helps. Thank you!

Giving Tuesday: An imPRESSive boost to our Capital Campaign

THANK YOU for the wondrous burst of activity and generosity!

But if you missed that day, no worries! The Capital Campaign continues. Colorado Gives goes through December 10; our campaign continues until we have enough to open the Englewood Depot building to all of you!

Even while we are fundraising, printing continues! Our press will be set up next to Santa during the Christmas Tree Lighting Holiday Market on Saturday, December 7 from 2-5pm. Stop by and say hello and come print with us! That’s at The Guild’s CitySpark space on Inca Street in Englewood CityCenter. HO HO HOPE you can join us!

Things are heating up!

Heat pump installation has begun at the Depot! It will be so nice to have heat this winter (and dare we hope AC as the temps go up?)  Donations helped us get a start on paying for this system.  THANK YOU. (We still do have a ways to go, so assistance  always welcome.) And while hese next pix may not throw sparks…

they are one of the last steps (we hope) to get the electricity working. To connect power from the Xcel pole to the building, we had to dig an almost 40 foot long, 2-3 foot deep trench for undergrounding the conduit. Thanks to Tom, Jason, Robert, Kirk, Bryan and Jasper for straining their muscles for the cause! Note the tool of choice - a pickax -in the first image. Now we’re hoping for the electrician to complete the circuit.

Meanwhile we’ve been printing at the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show. Some Scouts were there working on their merit badge in stamp collecting.  And other kids having fun too. Thanks to Marc, Tom and Patti for showing them how to get inky.

It’s spring at the Depot. If you can…spring…for any donations, go to https://www.coloradogives.org/organization/LetterpressDepot or click below.

For more info about any of our work, email us at info@letterpressdepot.com, or text 720-480-5358. Follow us @letterpressdepot on Instagram, Facebook and @letpressdepot on X.

What an ending to Month of Printmaking!

Photo by board member Bryan Dahlberg

Letterpress Depot printers Bryan Dahlberg, Marc Silberman and Tom Parson and volunteer Tim Vermeulian joined over 70 other makers at this year’s Small Press Fest. Note the mini-press in a box thatBryan used to print Jabberwocky on - he made that press himself!

Thanks to Bryan and Dave Laskowski III for capturing the scene. And to all who came to print with us! For more Depot intel, contact us at info@letterpressdepot.com or call/text 720-480-5358. Follow us on Facebook & Instagram (@letterpressdepot) and on X (@letpressdepot). See you somewhere!

Next up: Small Press Fest, Saturday, March 30

Letterpress Depot will be at Small Press Fest March 30th from 11-4 along with 70 zine, book, comic, print and other DIY makers at the Globeville Center. Our prints are still up this month at the wondrous Spectra Gallery. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us last week at Belleview Park and at all our Open Studios - from Englewood to Fort Collins! Here are just some pix of the inky fun.

Some more details: Globeville Center is at 44th and Grant; Spectra Gallery is at 1836 South Broadway. You can contact us at info@letterpressdepot.com or call 720-480-5358. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram. See you somewhere!

What a Year! Thanks for being part of it!

We have one more opportunity for those who would like to help us get heat in our 1915 railroad depot aka the Letterpress Depot. We are about to receive a generous check which we would like to use to match all donations received the rest of this month. (We already matched all the Colorado Gives donations). You can donate on our website or mail a check to us at Box 798, Englewood, CO 80151. For those who’ve already given/opened our emails/visited our website. Thank You!

2023 was a busy year (very hard to believe it’s almost over).

We printed at:

*5 schools

*5 fairs/events

*3 outdoor markets

* 2 Neighbor Nights at local parks

*2 private workshops

*1 block party

At the Depot, we completed:

*Replacement of more rotten structural beams

*Remediation of lead paint

*Removal of damaged plaster

*Installation of brick walkways

*Planting of trees and perennials

*Installation of a light pole for future electricity (and got the electrician to finally order parts he originally said he did over a year ago)

*  Receipt of 3 proposals for a heat transfer system.

We received printing donations & deals:

*Presses, rare wood type, useful metal type and type cases from Joanne Martin

* Type and more from Louise Padden/Evert Brown, David Ashley, Lexi O’Neill and Lonnie Peterson

*Adana presses used at all our outdoor events

Thank you for all you did to make this a busy year

For more information or to volunteer, please email us or call/text 720-480-5358. Follow our website, facebook, Instagram and X posts.

Busy days inside and out

Inside the Depot…bracing up the ceiling and rafters to repair structural rot

Outside the Depot…printing a Skate Board poster designed by Dave Lasjowski II at Cushing Park to celebrate its Skate Park. Part of Englewood’s Neighborhood Nights.

Print with us August 5, 10am-2pm, Englewood Civic Center. And at Englewood Block Party August 26, 4pm-8pm, 3400 S. Broadway. Donations more than welcome anytime to help the work that needs to be done. One way to donate: Colorado Gives. Click here. With thanks!

Tick tick tick four days until Colorado Gives ends on Dec. 6

We so appreciate everyone who has given so far, either through Colorado Gives or Facebook. And as you can imagine with the cost of construction these days, more is always welcome! We will be counting down the days here. A beautful and intriguing typeface to share in appreciation. Click on ANY image to donate.

William H. Page No. 171, Hamilton No. 299, printed by Tom Parson

THANK YOU

With thanks for your continuing support & participation...

…we offer a quick view back - the progress of construction, rehabilitation, preservation and re-purposing the historic Englewood Depot for our letterpress museum. Your donations through Colorado Gives helped make all this possible - now we need that help for the next steps to come.

BEFORE: with many years of neglect after the historic Depot was moved from its original location in 1994. The foundation level was unfinished and inaccessible, with a plywood fence and muddy fill-dirt. The Depot was deteriorated and boarded shut.

SINCE: drainage solved, concrete retaining wall relocated, ADA access ramp added, a new stucco lower wall with garage doors, home for the Letterpress Depot presses, type, workshops, classes. Funding with community support - a successful Indiegogo campaign - thank you! These first steps included historic research, architectural design work, a survey, civil and structural engineering consultation, and a preservation easement with the Colorado Historical Foundation to protect the historic aspect of the Depot in perpetuity.

 NOW: Rehabilitation work is under way for the upper level, workshops and letterpress projects are happening with portable equipment and with access to other printshops in the community. Your support is needed! Please donate for our year-end campaign on Colorado Gives. With an initial $5000 match, this month we have raised $10,375. We need to quadruple this now for our next grant application to complete rehabilitation for our living letterpress museum.

THANK YOU!

We have an electrical pole!

(Now just need electricity —supply chain issues plaguing us!) But it’s a start. Xcel did an amazing job, “digging” out a 5-1/2 foot hole with a very precise vacuum-cleaner type machine.

and, again with precision, swinging around another pole up the alley to hold a new transformer

Fun fact: the poles are set in the ground with…Polecrete!

Not so fun fact: Months of delay on our panel box arrival, now scheded for end of sigh October. But hey we have a pole when we’re ready for sparks to fly.

Getting inky at book fair

Great meeting people and printing with them at the recent Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. Three presses kept busy by board members Tom Parson, Bryan Dahlberg, Ian Van Mater, Marc Silberman and Dave Laskowski II.

Busy May (but wait, how is it almost over?)

An unwelcome surprise this year was the discovery that the Depot’s main structural beam and other supports had rotted. But this month, temporary vertical supports to hold up the roof were erected, the old vertical and horizontal beams replaced and the temporary ones removed. All part of the rehabilitation funded by the State Historical Fund and donors like you.

We also did more printing with elementary school kids - at Bishop, Cherrelyn and, below, at Charles Hay World School.

Board members Kirk Benson and Dave Laskowski II. Kirk also is an arts specialist in Englewood schools.

Then it was time for the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds. Some samples of what we printed: Board member Marc Silberman designed the vegetable laden-tribute to Colorado agriculture for the event and Executive Director Tom Parson had fun printing various cuts.

Also some great railroad finds at the next door ephemera show!

Volunteers always welcome! Englewooddepot@gmail.com or call 720-480-5358.

Busy times for Depotians! A steamroller and much more!

While board members Dave Laskowski II, Kirk Benson and Elanor Harris were designing and carving a large MDF board for the steamroller event…

… Tom Parson and Marc Silberman were printing with students at Bishop and Cherrelyn Elementary Schools in Englewood, thanks to Kirk who is a teacher at both schools. They also taught printing to some adults at Marc’s studio the same day.

Tom also was on a quest to see what was salvageable from two of Dana Smith’s presses burned during the Marshall fire—sadly not much—and from artist/photographer/designer Glenn Cuerden’s incredible archive of work, damaged by a broken water pipe.

The first of MANY rescue carloads for Glenn’s collection. More on that work in a later blog.

Because now it’s time to see the Steamroller event at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design! Elanor, Depot president Ian Van Mater and Erin Rademacher put ink and more ink on the board, then laid it on the ground, covered it with plywood and let the steamroller roll!

Here are a few of the other prints steamrolled that day!

So much has been going on since our Open House tour as part of Mo’Print in March. Thank you to all who came.

If you missed, or want to do/see more (we always have more to do, more to show) come to our meetup Saturday April 23 - englewooddepot@gmail.com or 720-480-5358 for details.

#meetapressMonday Come see us in person Saturday 3.26

Open Studio Tour Saturday 10-4 as part of Mo’Print, the Month of print. Come see our presses, with many in action!

Here are just some of the presses you will see - more will be shared other days this week!

Gordon Franklin press - note the brass side arms!

Gordon Franklin platen, new style 10x15  ~1871

The Gordon Franklin, called “the single most famous and influential jobbing press of the nineteenth century” was invented by George Phineas Gordon, who is celebrated as having developed the basic design of the most popular printing press ever. He named this model the  Franklin because Gordon, a spiritualist, said that Ben Franklin had described it to him in a dream. Our model is a Gordon’s brass side-arm “new style”, that started to be manufactured in 1871 when the patent on the older version was expiring.

Jones Gordon  Press ~1890

Manufactured by John M. Jones. Jones, who first built presses for George Phineas Gordon, started building them on his own when Gordon’s patents expired.

C&P 10x15 at the start of a print run

by Chandler & Price -All these built on the model designed by George Phineas Gordon

7x11, old style   1898-910x15 old style  1902

8x12 new style ~1930

Bryan Dahlberg, Doug Sorenson and Tom Parson huddle around the Colt’s Armory Press

Colts Armory platen (on loan from Doug Sorenson) ~1887

The name given after 1887 to Merrit Gally’s Universal press, which he’d introduced in 1869. The former minister held more than 500 patents. John Thomson, who hated Gally from the first time he heard him preach as a child, ended up taking over manufacture of the press in a high noon standoff worthy of the Colt’s name. For more details of this history see https://bit.ly/3D4BXIy

Old Reliable platen press 8x12    1888

The Old Reliable was manufactured for just one year  by H.H. Thorpe (Cleveland Type Foundry). James Thorpe held many other platen press patents, which he later sold to Chandler and Price.  Used by hobby printer Jim Grisenti, it was donated to the Depot by Jim Fitzgerald in memory of printer Wimpy Miller.

Schniedewend & Lee Old Style platen  Manufactured between 1884-93

This press also was built on the foundations laid by George Phineas Gordon. The Schniedewend company also built the Reliance A iron hand press on our east wall.

Damon-Peets platen, new style 9x12 (on loan from Doug Sorenson) ~1893

Calling itself the “latest improved Gordon,”whose “style supersedes all other presses” and which can print 2,000 sheets an hour, it was made by Damon & Peets of New York.

Next up: the Depot’s smaller presses…stay tuned! Come see them all March 26, Open Studio 10-4

A new old press, at home at the Depot

One of the Letterpress Depot’s most recent acquisitions – a Jones Gordon press, generously donated (along with other goodies) by Stacey Steers, David Brunel and Nena Restrepo-Gil of Boulder. THANK YOU!

After cleaning and oiling the press, Tom Parson got it rolling

A label on it says it was from “Chicago Newspaper Union. ” The donors got it a few decades ago from the weekly Dongola, Illinois, Tri-County Record, Its rollers were still wrapped in a six page issue dated June 15, 2000, which has an ad for “Does-the-Job Printing.”  A functional and historic addition to our printing museum collection! 

The press was manufactured between 1890-1903 in Palmyra, New York by John M. Jones. Jones made presses for George Phineas Gordon, who is celebrated as having developed the basic design of the most common printing press ever, the Gordon Letterpress. As Gordon’s patents expired, others such as Jones produced their own versions of his innovative machines.

The press has a treadle and several creative and practical additions to the original Gordon platen press. It has an easier new way to remove the chase, roller lifters so when you’re inking the press the ink doesn’t get on the form, and hand dial that adjusts the pressure—even while in the midst of printing - so you don’t have to open the packing to make small adjustments to improve the impression. And much more. The press is missing the sophisticated upper disk ink roller system noted in the ad, but has a detached small New Century inker.

Interestingly, Jones also invented one of the first typewriters or, as he called it, “Domestic Printing Machines”. His was only the third to reach manufacture—but the factory burned down after 130 had been fully or partially assembled.

We know your social and inboxes are jammed with reminders

of Colorado Gives Day, so with apologies…one more. Please go to https://www.coloradogives.org/letterpressdepot and give. The more we receive from donations, the more we get from the incentive fund. Every dollar and every donation helps.

Tick tick tick...counting down to Colorado Gives Day

It’s easy as pie

And speaking of pie, if you give to the Depot via Colorado Gives Day, we get a piece of the incentive pie they give on December 7.

Give today and (importantly) click on the green SCHEDULE GIVES DAY button so it counts on December 7. Or wait and give on December 7. Either way, the money will be put to good use. We have started rehabilitation on the Depot’s main room. But thanks to the rising cost of materials, expenses are higher than anticipated.

The more we raise now, the more we can do to fix up this 1915 railroad depot we like to call home.

If you already have registered at Coloradogives.org (it’s free), go to https://www.coloradogives.org/letterpressdepot and give what you can. And click on the Schedule for Gives Day green button. You do not have to live in Colorado. And if you have already given….