📍 423 2nd St, Solvang, CA, 93463
📞 805-688-5522
🌐 www.syvnews.com
The Santa Ynez Valley News has become a community institution after serving its readers and advertisers for nearly 90 years. Our staff members remain dedicated to publishing the best possible community newspapers each week. Owner, editor and publisher Oscar "O.L." Powell introduced the Valley News to the Santa Ynez Valley on Dec. 11, 1925, although it wasn't the Valley's first newspaper. The Santa Ynez Argus, published by a Mr. King and a Mr. Merrill, was the Valley's first newspaper in 1895. Others also came and went, including the Santa Ynez Valley Sentinel and the Santa Ynez Valley Press. At first, the Valley News was printed on the Lompoc Record's press. With the help of Marcus Nielsen, the Feb. 19, 1926, issue was the first printed in Solvang. The Babcock drum cylinder press was six times faster than the previous "Diamond" model. In Nov. 1927, Walter L. Hanson and his wife, Mella, bought the Valley News. Hanson had owned newspapers in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, his home state, before coming to the Valley. Powell, the newspaper's first owner, was killed in Los Angeles by a streetcar in February 1943, two weeks after his 47th birthday. In an article published on Oct. 25, 1973, his widow Della M. Powell recalled the early days of the newspaper. Della Powell, 75 at the time, continued to ride motorcycles and fly aerobatic planes in Lancaster. The Hansons worked 16- to 18-hour days in production of the Valley News. Mella served as chief bookkeeper, Linotype operator and news writer. At the time, Solvang was said to be the smallest town in the country with a Model 14 Linotype. In early November 1945, the Hansons sold the newspaper to a pair of Army veterans returning home from the South Pacific theater. Richard Kintzel and Karl R. Jorgensen were both graduates of Santa Ynez Valley Union High School. The Hansons retired to their ranch "just north of town." Jorgensen had worked as an apprentice in the Valley News print shop as a youth. Kintzel, a Kansas native, had moved to the Valley in 1929. In 1958, Jorgensen bought Kintzel's share of the Valley News, and Kintzel went on to become Solvang's fourth postmaster in 1965. He served as postmaster until his retirement in 1977. He died in June 1982 at 67 years old. On Jan. 24, 1947, Kintzel and Jorgensen named King Merrill the newspaper's first news editor. Merrill served as editor for nearly 30 years, until his resignation in May 1974, and then returned in the early 1980s. With Merrill as editor, the Valley News won a number of honors, including a 1973 California Newspaper Publishers Association first place award for general excellence for weeklies under 3,500 circulation. Dana Merrill, King's son, said his father was a "born newspaper man." King's father, grandfather and great-grandfather were also in the newspaper business. King and wife Elenita, the daughter of Samuel de la Cuesta and one of the founding members of the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau, met at a Solvang Veterans Memo