Palace Press | New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs

Palace Press

Celebrating the Art of Printing at the New Mexico History Museum

A boxful of wooden poster type awaits the perfect printing job at the Palace Press.

Situated in rooms adjoining the nearly 400-year-old courtyard of the Palace of the Governors is the Print Shop and Bindery, known as the Palace Press.

A living Museum of New Mexico exhibit dedicated to the history of the state's printing traditions, the Palace Press offers some 70,000 yearly visitors an opportunity to relive the lively environment of 19th century publishing.

Here, you can enter a sensory world where working machinery clanks and groans and the pungent smell of ink hangs in the air. Formidable iron and wood hand presses are situated behind wood railings along with rows of cabinets housing antique metal types, imposing tables of softly scarred marble, and sewing frames and “nipping” presses for hand binding books and pamphlets.

More than a collection of artifacts, the Palace Press is a vital center for the revival, stimulation, and pursuit of the book arts. Award-winning, limited edition books are published here on historic presses and a research library of more than 400 volumes related to the arts of the book is available to the public during Museum hours.

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