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Editor’s Note: As part of its year-long Centennial Sundays series, the Journal today shines a light on the leadership and tenure of C.Thompson Lang.

In 1956, the staff of the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���, The sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Tribune and the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Publishing Company were enjoying their fairly new digs at the massive building at Seventh and Silver SW, just blocks from Downtown’s Central Avenue.

This was when Downtown served as sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���’s retail center, with Stromberg’s, Paris Shoes Kistler-Collister, and Sears, Roebuck and Co., going strong. The rerouted Route 66 brought tourists from around the world through the city’s core. sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���’s first skyscraper, the 13-story Simms Building, was built two years before. Concha belts and fiesta skirts became the new popular “Southwest style.”

That was the city the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� covered when C. Thompson Lang took the reins of the newspaper and the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Publishing Company after the unexpected death of his uncle, Thomas Pepperday.

Like his uncle, C.T. Lang was a private man who preferred to stay in the background. He even declined to have his name appear on the Journal masthead. Still, he guided the publishing company through a period of rapid growth, during which the Journal solidified itself as the largest and most widely read newspaper in the state.

This time in the paper’s history was also a period of explosive growth for sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� and New Mexico. Driven by nuclear research at Sandia National Laboratories and Cold War industry, the city’s population more than doubled from 97,000 in 1950 to 244,000 in 1970, while the state’s population grew from 680,000 in 1950 to just over 1 million in 1970.

The 1960s era was also a transformative time for sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���, when both Winrock and Coronado regional shopping centers were built, drawing much of the retail scene away from Downtown. Also, in 1966, two of the city’s landmarks – University Arena, aka The Pit, and the Sandia Peak Tramway – opened their doors.

Lang the publisher

Under C.T. Lang’s leadership, which spanned 14 years until his death in 1971, the Journal’s subscriptions increased from just under 50,000 to 70,000 daily and 97,000 on Sundays.

“You know my dad came out of the World War II era, because he was a Merchant Marine,” says his younger son and the Journal’s current publisher, William (Bill) Lang. “And of course, my dad came out of the Depression. So (that generation) had a really strong work ethic. He always worked Saturdays,” often taking his two sons with him.

“So, we were around a lot of strong work ethic all the time. … And the newspaper was such an integral part of that.”

C.T. Lang was also a strong behind-the-scenes force in the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� business community, working to improve many aspects of the city.

But he was extremely independent and declined to join most community or business  organizations. This, he felt, was necessary to allow his newspaper complete freedom to operate without bias.

C.T. Lang was always interested in politics but, again, maintained the Journal’s status as an independent newspaper. He based the Journal’s editorial choices in political races on the qualifications of the individual and not on political affiliation.

For the most part, he left management of the newspaper to his editors and their staff.

While he was not involved in the day-to-day newspaper work, that was not the case when it came to the publishing company and the printing process.

Under his uncle, Thomas Pepperday, he supervised the early 1950’s construction of the Seventh and Silver plant that housed the Journal, The Tribune and the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Publishing Company for many years.

Lang loved machinery and took the lead role in making the Journal and The Tribune among the  most modernly equipped newspapers in the U.S.

“We’d go down there on weekends and he’d be checking on things,” recalls Bill Lang. “He’d be down in the mechanical area, just seeing what’s going on, seeing that things are properly in place. And that’s just what we did.”

Ray Hunter, 80, who worked for the Journal from 1968 to 2007 in the mailroom and pressroom, recalled in a recent interview that “Mr. Lang’s office had a door that opened to the pressroom. If he didn’t hear the presses start on time, he would come in and push the button himself.”

Hunter also recalls that every year “Mr. Lang would come down to get his paper on a holiday, Christmas or New Year’s, and give us a bottle of champagne and he’d say: ‘Be careful boys.’”

At the time of his death, C.T. Lang was deeply involved in plans for a new addition designed to double the size of the newsroom and printing capacity at Seventh and Silver.

A civic leader

C.T. Lang was among business leaders in the late 1950s and early 1960s who pushed for revitalizing sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���’s Downtown, with the Journal shining a spotlight on the area’s squalid sections. Urban renewal projects planned in the 1960s transformed the city’s core. The Bernalillo County Courthouse and Dennis Chavez Federal Building were completed in the mid-1960s, while the cornerstones of the redevelopment plan – the Convention Center and Civic Plaza – were completed in the early 1970s.

However, the revitalization effort also led to the demolition of some historic buildings, a move that many later condemned.

Lang also was one of the early supporters of the creation of the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Industrial Development Service, which later became the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Economic Development, Inc., and is now the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Regional Economic Alliance. He was among the first to recognize the need for an entity that focused solely on the city’s economic development.

On a more personal level, Lang was extremely generous and quietly made many gifts to charity. He was especially proud of the Journal’s longtime sponsorship of the N.M. High School Science Fair at New Mexico Tech, and provided scholarships for the University of New Mexico journalism program and for NM Tech.

Who was C.T. Lang?

C. Thompson Lang was born in 1912, in New Rochelle, N.Y. His family moved to Ottawa, Canada, when he was 9 years old. He moved to sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� at the age of 22 to work for his uncle, Thomas Pepperday, as city circulation manager at the publishing company. He later moved to San Francisco.

His service in the Merchant Marines during WWII may have sparked his love of the water as he spent 13 months at sea. Lang loved to swim and spent any vacation time he had on a boat he kept in San Francisco. He also had an intense interest in automobiles, possibly derived from his uncle being a racecar driver in his early years.

In 1945, he returned to sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� to work for the Pepperday-owned KOB-TV and Radio and then as district sales manager for the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Publishing Co. He worked closely with Pepperday and became publisher upon his uncle’s unexpected death in 1956.

He was known for his wit and knowledge of local and national affairs. He also was an amateur chef who loved to cook.

Only a week before his death, he underwent a complete physical at the University of California Medical Center to determine the cause of severe headaches. Doctors had successfully treated him for the headaches more than two years earlier, but now they were back. The California tests didn’t show any issues. He died about five weeks later.

On the day of his death, he had worked a full day at the office. That night at home, he became ill and 911 was called. The two sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� police officers who responded were both former employees of the publishing company.

C.T. Lang’s death at the age of 59, just hours after leaving his desk at the Journal, shocked sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���’s business and civic communities.

Accolades poured in from political leaders across the state, from newspaper publishers across the nation, from movers and shakers throughout sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� and from former employees whose lives he had touched.

His oldest son, Thompson H. Lang, then 24, succeeded his father as president and publisher of the Journal and sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ��� Publishing Co.

C.T.’s youngest son, Bill, then 19, was at college in San Diego but returned home after his father’s death. He attended the University of New Mexico for a year before returning to San Diego to finish his bachelor of science degree from California Western, a branch of the United States International University. He then joined his brother at the publishing company.

Karen Moses is a former editor of the sa���ʴ�ý������ҳ���. Reach her at kmoses@abqjournal.com.