About Deming headlight. [volume] (Deming, N.M.) 1881-1948
Deming, N.M. (1881-1948)

Deming Headlight

The Deming Headlight was published between June 25, 1881, and December 31, 1948, and then again from January 6, 1956 to the present. It appeared weekly except for a brief period when it was published daily between September 1883 and June 1886. The March 18, 1882, issue offered a subscription rate of $3.00 a year, "invariably in advance," or six months for $1.75. The January 2, 1904, issue offered a subscription of $2.00 per year, in advance, $1.00 for six months, or six cents for a single issue. In its January 9, 1904, issue, the Headlight advertised itself as "about the only newspaper left in New Mexico today to which there is not some string tied." Readers could expect to find international, national, territorial, state, and local news reporting within its pages.

Commencing publication with a small treadle-powered job press, the Deming Headlight soon secured a Washington hand press which dramatically improved the aesthetic appeal of the paper. When publisher J.E. Curren bragged about the improvements of the Headlight, noting that he started with the poorest town, press, and types in the nation, C.J. Hildreth, the editor of the Las Cruces Rio Grande Republican commented, "This reminds us of the fruit vendor who came to Chicago twenty years ago with all of his stock and trade in one basket and now he owns a handcart."

Deming grew out of the development of railways; it was the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Other newspapers soon arrived to compete with the Headlight for readers. Charles W. Greene launched the weekly Deming Tribune and Lake Valley Herald in October 1883, and Curren responded immediately by publishing the Deming Headlight daily. After the Tribune folded, the Deming Headlight returned to a weekly publication schedule. However, the Headlight did not provide the profits Curren had hoped for, and in 1884 he traded the paper for the Kingston Clipper as he dove into the world of the flourishing Sierra County mining camps. The Deming Headlight became a leading territorial Democratic paper under the editorship of former Governor Edmund Gibson Ross, and later, William B. Walton. A weekly Republican challenger titled the Deming Herald began publication in 1900 as life-long Democrat P.J. Bennett changed his politics to compete with the Headlight. Bennett's efforts did not succeed, and the Herald was replaced by the weekly Deming Graphic in 1903.

Provided by: University of New Mexico