Bill Lynch: The ‘I-T’ and its long history at 117 W. Napa

With temporary move in the works, a look back at paper’s longtime ‘home’|

At the end of next week, the staff of the Sonoma Index-Tribune is temporarily moving from its 117 W. Napa St. office into a rented space across the street; while its current digs get a remodel, including an expansion of the second floor.

The family business has been at the location since the 1920s.

It isn’t the first time the office was temporarily moved from that spot for a remodel. In 1957, my father, Robert M. Lynch, who was the editor and publisher, undertook a major demolition and remodeling project of the I-T building that completely changed its look.

It had been a 1920s-style, ivy-covered, single-story concrete and stucco front. When local contractor, John Moll, finished his remodel in 1957, the front of the I-T was two-stories high and had a new (but old-looking) Monterey Mission architecture.

In 1884, when my great grandfather Harry Granice, moved to Sonoma and bought the I-T, it was located in an old wood-frame building at the corner of Broadway and West Napa Street.

After he bought the paper, great grandpa ran the I-T from a small one-room print shop beside the family home on East Napa Street. That home and old shop still stand today, part of a 10-year-old, unfinished remodeling/restoration project.

The move to 117 W. Napa St. in the 1920s was not the result of the I-T’s business growth, but because my grand aunt and uncle, Celeste and Walter Murphy, Harry’s daughter and son-in-law, had constructed a new business building there. The Murphy’s ran the paper at that location until their retirement in 1946.

The I-T offices only took up a small portion.

During those early years, the I-T shared the building with Safeway (where Sisters is today), later that space was an Italian grocery operated by the Mori family, and then it was the “As-Is Shop,” a second-hand store operated for the benefit of Sonoma Valley Hospital.

The I-T also shared the building with my dad’s close friends, Don Canevari, who was an insurance broker, and Al Maggini, who was a stockbroker for Mitchum, Jones and Templeton.

The I-T continued to grow and prosper. By the 1960s the family business occupied the whole building. In the 1970s and ‘80s, new buildings were added in the back of the property and new offset press equipment was brought in and operated there.

At the dawn of the 21st Century, it was clear that digital world was going to turn traditional print-based businesses upside down.

While converting to partial digital delivery of the news, the I-T also decided that it was no longer viable to operate its own presses, and in 2007, got out of the printing business.

The space into which in once expanded was no longer needed.

Other changes in the way newspapers are produced by computer, further reduced the need for space. Its consolidation with the Press Democrat in 2012 also reduced the need for space. Gradually the I-T has returned to something close to the space it occupied in the 1930s and ‘40s.

My understanding is that once the remodel is complete, the I-T staff will once again return to its new/old digs at 117 W. Napa St.

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