University of New Mexico Press

Leaving his post as editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch, Walter moved to Santa Fe, where he was also assistant director of the Museum of New Mexico and the School of American Research.

In August 1930, at the annual meeting of the boards of the Museum of New Mexico and the School of American Research, Walter was authorized to move his father's printing plant for the periodical El Palacio to UNM campus.

Because early publications were printed by the UNMP plant, the copyright page often listed "University of New Mexico Press" as the publisher.

The first hardcover, bound full-length book, was New Mexico History and Civics, by Lansing Bloom and Thomas Donnelly was published in September, 1933.

Fred E. Harvey was hired as director in 1933, as Walter left to complete his Ph.D. and become the founding faculty member of UNM's sociology department.

The committee consisted of "Bloom, Brand, Harvey, Pearce, Seyfried, John D. Clark, Popejoy, and Hammond" and was the editorial board of the press.

A statewide commission was set up to handle the celebration, and the Coronado Historical Fund, with federal and state moneys was established.

The first—the Coronado Historical Series—consisted of ten titles authored by notable historians like Herbert E. Bolton, George P. Hammond, and Frances V. Scholes.

In 1945, one of the first major grants was accepted when the Carnegie Corporation offered $1,500 for publication of It Happened in Taos, an educational study by J. T. Reid.

Budget appropriations, approval of manuscripts, qualifications of press personnel, operating procedures, and an editorial program were all covered.

The editorial program at this time recognized that the press would publish two kinds of materials: scholarly works that would be included in the Publications Series and other books.

A deficit subsidy of $15,000 annually would be the university's maximum support and the press was told to strive for increased sales and self-sufficiency.

During this era, Mann published such writers as Ross Calvin and Frank Waters as the press was giving serious attention to developing a regional list that would appeal to a wide audience.

As a move toward greater economy and efficiency, UNM president Tom Popejoy decided to combine three departments—UNM Press, the New Mexico Quarterly, and the Publications Series into one department.

The Regents then appointed Roland Dickey director, and in December 1956, four full-time and two part-time employees oversaw press operations.

In 1969, UNMP published The Way to Rainy Mountain, N. Scott Momaday's blockbuster that has become a modern-day classic of Kiowa Indian myth, history, and personal reminiscences.

When Treadwell resigned in early 1980, Shugg was once again brought out of retirement to act as interim director until the hiring late in the summer of 1980 of Luther Wilson, who came from the University of Oklahoma Press.

A year after Hadas became director, UNMP published The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter — the press's all-time best-selling title, having sold more than two million copies.

The book, originally positioned as a non-fiction account of the life of a Cherokee boy, with the sub-title "A True Story", was later deemed to be fiction because of the author's misrepresentation of his past, which included affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan and speech-writing for racist Alabama Governor George Wallace.

By the middle of the decade, list size had grown from fifty to eighty new titles a year and sales had doubled to $5 million.