The last edition of the weekly Vail Trail was published Wednesday, ending a four-decade run that began shortly after Vail Mountain opened in 1962, the newspaper announced today.
“We’ve come to the end of the Trail as a stand-alone publication,” wrote Don Rogers, editor and associate publisher of the Vail Trail in the weekly’s final edition Wednesday. “This will be the last edition.”
The weekly newspaper competed with the Vail Daily for two decades until the Vail Daily’s parent company, Swift Communications, bought the Trail in 2004, Rogers said in his column today.
Rogers is also the editor and associate publisher of the Vail Daily.
Swift struggled to keep the Trail going, first as a publication and staff entirely independent of the Vail Daily, and for the past year and a half as part of the Daily’s operation, Rogers wrote.
“Neither approach worked as well,” he wrote. “The economic downturn that hit the entire community this fall has forced the hard decision here to focus on the Daily, one of the most successful newspapers in the entire country, and to end the quest to bring the Trail back to its golden age.”
Starting next week, the best of the Trail will continue in the pages of the Daily, Rogers wrote.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
