It has taken 150 years since William Byers hauled his printing press from Omaha, Nebraska by oxcart during the start of the Colorado gold rush and bought out the first issue of Rocky Mountain News on 23 April 1859 till the recession of 2009 and online news to bring dwn the curtains down on Colorado's oldest newspaper.

Along the way of its 150 years of history it brought out editions from the attic of "Uncle" Dick Wooten's saloon located on the banks of the Cherry Creek, bagged four Pulitzer Prizes,  and became one of the leading newspapers in the US and an integral part of the lives of Coloradans.

EW Scripps, who bought the newspaper in 1926, announced yesterday that it will be publishing its last edition today, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday, after failing to find a buyer since the last three months as dwindling ad revenue has made the paper lose $50 million in 2008 and is likely to lose more this year.

Scripps said in a statement that the newspaper became "a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges. The Rocky is one of America's very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership's business model is locked in the past."

The Rocky Mountain News had tied up with its bitter rival and only other newspaper in Colorado, the Denver Post, where it agreed on a joint operating agreement (JOA) that combined advertising, circulation and production departments while still having two independent newsrooms.

Both newspapers having a daily circulation of 210,000, Editor John Temple said that Denver could no longer support two newspapers and the only prospective buyer, backed out.

The Denver Post, which was its long standing bitter rival and now the only daily in Colorado had this to say in today's edition of its paper, ''Even though the Rocky was our fiercest competitor from our earliest days in the late 19th century, there is no joy at The Denver Post today.

And even though this was one of the country's last, great newspaper wars, there is no victory to celebrate.

It's a sad day for Denver, for Colorado, for newspapers and for democracy. We're sorry to see our old friends go.''

The Post reportedly said that it will absorb a few of the reporters, columnists and editors from the 200 odd newsroom staff of Rocky Mountain News.

Newspapers all over the US are in dire straits as advertising revenue has declined sharply and readership dwindling as more and more readers opting to get their news online forcing many newspapers to either close or file for bankruptcy as the Philadelphia Inquirer and New Haven Register did this week. (See: Philadelphia Inquirer, New Haven Register file for Chapter 11)

They join seven other units, including Philadelphia Media, PMH Acquisition, Philly Online and PMH Holdings, which have also filed for Chapter 11 protection. All of them have cited a slump in advertising revenues as the main reason.

Industry-wide print advertising sales endured their worst plunge in at least 37 years in last year's third quarter, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

There was a 16 per cent increase of visitors to the websites of the top 10 US newspapers in 2008 and a 27 per cent increase in the total number of overall visits, according to data from Nielsen Online.

The number of visitors rose from 34.6 million in December 2007 to 40.1 million in December 2008.

Tribune Co, owner of the iconic Chicago Tribune, sought protection on 8 December, a year after going private under Sam Zell. (See: Tribune files for bankruptcy protection) The Minneapolis Star Tribune is yet another paper which went bankrupt recently, unable to quell mounting financial pressures, with credit tight and more readers and advertisers switching to the Internet. 

The erosion of the way that most papers make their money portends the possibility of more bankruptcies and raises questions about the gradual destruction of one of the basic ways that people in the United States get their news.