Today

Reno Printing is a general service commercial printer. We have the newest technology pre-press, sheet-fed offset, direct imaging, and bindery equipment. Our creative department is staffed with artists and journalists and is capable of handling your printing project from concept to completion. We utilize and are expert with the Desk-Top-Publishing programs used on both the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows computer systems. Our offset printing presses are large format (25" x 35") and are capable of high volume reproduction of your images whether they are publications (magazines, manuals, newsletters), books, posters or other printed products. Our Direct Imaging department can handle your quick turn and variable data needs. Our bindery is capable of all finishing operations from saddle-binding through perfect-binding, folding, padding, shrink-wrapping and high speed accurate cutting.

Company History

Printer's Ink on Center Street

Excerpts from an Essay by John Sanford

Editor: Reno Evening Gazette

Arriving in Reno in 1904 Graham Sanford, who had published a newspaper in his native Washington, Indiana, was following his star of fortune westward. Pausing in Reno, he became a reporter for the Reno Evening Gazette, and later became the paper's city editor.

In 1907, as a result of an injudicious loan, he found himself the owner of a job printing shop at 20 East Second Street. Leaving the Gazette he reorganized the business as the Reno Printing Company. With his experience in the printing business in Indiana, he soon established a reputation for quality printing and press work for the Reno Printing Company.

In 1915 Graham Sanford sold his Reno Printing Company to William S. Lunsford and that year joined with Samual Platt, a Carson City Attorney and George Sanford, Platt's law partner and Graham Sanford's associate in the Indiana paper, to purchase the Gazette newspaper.

William S. Lunsford continued operation of the Reno Printing Company at 20 East Second Street, then moved to larger quarters around the corner at 140 North Center Street. Active in community affairs, Lunsford was a member of the Reno Commercial Club later to become the Reno Chamber of Commerce and he was one of the chief promoters of the 1927 Reno Transcontinental Highway Exposition which celebrated the completion of the last link of the cross-continental highway, later to be known as U.S. Highway 40.

In 1927 Lunsford built an attractive building to house an enlarged Reno Printing Company plant on Center Street between the Gazette and Fordonia Building. The second floor accommodated the first advertising agency in Nevada, the firm of Bracking and Ness.

Lunsford was a devoted supporter of the University of Nevada and his enlarged Reno Printing Company provided many part-time jobs for university students.

A campus romance was climaxed by the marriage of two popular university graduates, Ethel Lunsford, daughter of William S. Lunsford, and Harry J. Frost a leader in student activities. After a year in Sacramento in association with the Zellerbach Paper Company, a large supplier of printing supplies, the Frosts returned to Reno to become active in the operation of the Reno Printing Company.

After the untimely death of William S. Lunsford in 1931, operation of the Reno Printing Company was assumed by Mr. and Mrs. Frost with Harry J. Frost as the manager and the company shared in Reno's prosperity of the 1940s and 50s.

Reno's morning Newspaper, the Nevada State Journal, located for a time on East Second Street, was forced to seek new quarters after a fire. For a time it was housed in part of a remodeled garage which later became a dance hall, then an automobile show room, and then a bawdy night club known as the Dog House. After a variety of owners it finally settled in a former bowling alley at 124 North Center Street.

On October 1, 1939 the Reno Evening Gazette was sold by the Sanfords to Speidel Newspapers, Inc., publisher of several newspapers in medium sized communities across the country and on the following November 1st Speidel acquired the Nevada State Journal, giving it the Reno newspaper field.

Each paper operated as a separate publication, each with its own news and advertising staff, and each with its own editorial policy. Competition between the Gazette and Journal was sharp.

Although there were plans for a new plant, the advent of World War II put these plans on the shelf.

For reasons of economic operation, consolidation of operation in the Gazette Building began and so did the mad scramble on Center Street.

Western Union was loath to move from the space it had occupied in The Gazette Building since it was built. Relocation of its underground cable system and transfer of its host of communication equipment was a hideous problem. A move next door to the Lunsford Building was the most feasible.

Arrangements to vacate the Journal office across Center Street began and the Journal moved to the temporary offices around the corner. Reno Printing Company moved its mass of printing machinery across the street. Western Union turned its cables into the Lunsford Building and transferred all of its electronic gear next door.

Journal business officers moved into the former Western Union office and Journal and Gazette news staffs shared the second floor. A combined composing room was established and press room operations established.

At war's end plans for a new building were revived.

A new site was chosen on West Second Street with access to railroad sidings. An ill advised strike by the Newspaper Guild, supported by the Typographical Union, brought some delay.

In 1960 the new Gazette Journal Building was occupied and the Gazette Building vacated to make way for a parking garage for First National Bank. Reno City Hall had given way for the same purpose.

Even the West Second Street building gave way as the Reno papers became a part of the giant Gannett system and operations were consolidated in a vast plant on the south bank of the Truckee River.

The last Reno Evening Gazette was printed on September 30, 1983, to be followed by a Reno Gazette-Journal, a seven-day morning newspaper.

Reno Printing Company soon was to have new owners and a new plant in Reno's new southeast industrial area; a plant with modern equipment and sophisticated methods that would amaze Graham Sanford and William S. Lunsford.

The last trace of printing ink has vanished from Center Street with only a few memories in the mind of a few Center Street ancients.

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Richard M. Stout, a former Speidel and Gannett Newspaper Executive and George M. Stout, a Reno attorney purchased Reno Printing Company from Darrell Jason and Jerry Butler in April of 1983. Butler and Jason had purchased the company from Dr. Don Ross Laudon, a Reno physician, nine years earlier. Laudon purchased the company from Harry and Ethel Lunsford Frost upon Harry's retirement as manager.

On June 1, 2004, the company was purchased by Reno Printing, LLC