Today marks a milestone in The Oxford EAGLE’s history and its future.

When The EAGLE’s presses stop today, the shutdown will mark the last edition to be physically printed at the Jackson Avenue location.

The newspaper is relocating its press facility to a new location at 4 County Road 2050 (Highway 30 near Stout’s Carpet).

Relocating the nearly 50,000 pounds of machinery that prints the newspaper is no small task, nor is it a rapid move. Relocating the press will take about two weeks.

Starting with Thursday’s edition, The Oxford EAGLE will be printed at the neighboring newspaper, The Panolian, in Batesville for roughly two weeks. Panolian owners, brothers John and Rupert Howell, will assist The EAGLE during this transition period.

The newspaper will be printed daily, except for Saturday, and customers should see no interruption in home delivery. We will have earlier news deadlines to allow plenty of time to have the newspaper printed and delivered at its normal time.

The Sunday morning newspaper will be printed in one section, which will be the only significant change that subscribers may notice.

During the transition to the new location, we will invest in our production operation to improve the newspaper’s color printing quality and capacity. We will expand the printing capacity of the press to allow more color pages.

The EAGLE also will install a modern computer to plate (CTP) machine, which will enable us to send the news pages directly onto a printing plate, which should also improve efficiency as well as quality.

The actual press move will be done Sunday after Double Decker. For anyone driving by The EAGLE, you will see a lot of large equipment involved with moving the 6,000-pound press units and a 10,000-pound folding machine.

“We are excited for the new level of service we can bring to our readers and look forward to readers stopping in and visiting in our new location,” said Publisher Tim Phillips.

Once the press is moved and situated, the next step is to move the rest of The EAGLE’s offices, and that should be completed in mid-May.