Capturing the past

Filter Press aims to publish credible Colorado history

By Linda DuVal | January 23, 2025

Next time you read a book about Zeb Pike, Rattlesnake Kate or Chief Ouray, take a peek at who published it. It likely says Filter Press of Westcliffe, Colorado.

When it comes to well researched, fact-based Colorado history, Filter Press is probably the premier publisher in the state.

Founded in 1956 by Gilbert Campbell—who once worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and later for the Denver Public Library before becoming librarian at the U.S. Air Force Academy—it is one of the oldest independent publishers in Colorado.

With degrees in engineering and later library science, Campbell brought his personal interests to bear when he wrote his first book, Thirty Pound Rails, about the extraction process required to form the rails that built the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. One of the machines used in the process was called a Filter Press, and Campbell liked the play on words, so that’s what he named his own publishing company, says Doris Baker, who (along with husband Tom) purchased the publishing house in 1996.

Campbell’s operation was small—he ran the entire thing out of his house, including having a printing press in his basement, Doris Baker recalls.

“His books were really more like pamphlets and they were stapled together,” Baker says. “But he’d run off up to 20,000 at a time.”

Like Campbell, the Bakers focused on Western history, primarily that of Colorado. Unlike Campbell, they farmed out the actual printing to a professional printer. The couple retired from the business in 2022 when they sold it to one of their authors, Julie Bell VanLaanen.

A new era

Julie VanLaanen

VanLaanen is a Colorado native who grew up in Monument, spent a lot of time climbing 14,000-foot peaks, exploring old ghost towns and hiking in the deserts and mountains of Utah and Colorado.

“My dad liked to climb mountains and I went with him a lot,” she says.

VanLaanen earned a master’s degree in biomechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.  She worked as an engineer at Digital Equipment Corp.  in Colorado Springs for about eight years (part of it in Germany). But she’d always loved writing. In 2016, she had a historical mystery published and that’s when she got hooked. The Lucky Hat Mine (not published by Filter Press) inspired her to venture into nonfiction, which she found more satisfying.

Filter published her first nonfiction work, a biography titled Elizabeth Byers: Denver Pioneer, under the pen name of JVL Bell—a name she still uses.

“That’s how I got to know it,” she says. “And then I bought the company. This is supposed to be my retirement, though I’ve never worked so hard in my life.”

Van Laanen is always busy but never bored. She has continued to write and her latest book Women of the Colorado Gold Rush Era, published by Filter Press and co-written with Jan Gunia, recently won a Colorado Book Award in nonfiction history. (See Rocky Mountain Reader’s review here.)

But her focus these days is mostly on publishing. She describes the company this way:

“Filter Press is a traditional publishing company that publishes Southwest and Colorado history for educators and the casual historian—aka history buffs.”

The company has published more than 300 books in its history and has about 100 titles available currently.

Authors typically query VanLaanen online, via her website (see below), “and if it’s a topic I’m interested in, I will ask for a synopsis and the first couple of chapters. If it’s something we want, or I fall in love with, we work with the author on rewrites and graphics.”

Filter does not pay advances to authors; neither do authors pay to have their work published. Remuneration comes in the form of royalties.

VanLaanen loves reading about Colorado history and gets excited when she receives a manuscript that brings that history to life.

The Filter Press mission

VanLaanen is always looking for books about Colorado, its history and people,­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­“stories not already written to death.”

Recently, she’s been working with an author who writes about the Amache internment camp. She’d love to see a book about how Colorado finally won statehood.

A lot of time is spent on editing and fact-checking manuscripts, and the company has a graphics designer who does the artwork and layout.

A Filter Press children’s book based in Colorado history

And although they don’t do much marketing, Filter does set up signings for authors and goes to education conferences to promote its young adult series for schools.  A lot of Filter’s books are sold to educators and history buffs. They’re also carried at museums, historical societies and sites, such as Bent’s Fort and the Molly Brown House. They also can be found in school and public libraries.

Equally popular are their children’s books. The Great Lives series consists of 33 bilingual books in Spanish and English—sold individually and in sets—focusing on famous Coloradans, such as the aforementioned Zeb Pike, Rattlesnake Kate and Chief Ouray. The series came about as a mutual project between Colorado Humanities, Denver Public Schools and Filter Press. All the books were written by schoolteachers for grades 3 and 4.  The Now You Know series is aimed at grades 4 to 7, books that are not bilingual but much more in-depth, VanLaanen says. Featured are Molly Brown and Gen. William Palmer, founder of Colorado Springs.

Some books take more research than others. The Elizabeth Byers book, for example, required a lot of research on “what was it like for a woman to live in Colorado during the gold rush era.” VanLaanen was lucky enough to find Byers’ hand-typed manuscript (her husband, William, was co-founder of the Rocky Mountain News and an early philanthropist).

Probably the most unusual book Filter has published under VanLaanen’s leadership is titled The Bonedigger’s Daughter —“a really different mix of both Colorado history and natural history. It’s a delightful story about a young woman from Canon City who helped dig up dinosaur bones with her father.” (See Rocky Mountain Reader’s review here.)

But perhaps the most challenging book VanLaanen worked on is The Beckwith Dynasty, about the vast, historic Beckwith Ranch in the Wet Mountains, which took a lot of fact-checking that was difficult to track down.

Future publications will include a book on the Leadville Ice Palace and a children’s book on the Great Sand Dunes.

What is VanLaanen looking for?

“After the topic, books need to be factual, well researched and well written. I will take fiction if it’s an author or story I’m excited about” she says.

But even fiction must be based in fact and well researched, she adds.

Does history sell?

“We’re a small publishing house, but I think they sell pretty well for our size. If a book sells 500 copies in the first year, I’ll feel really good about it,” she says.

She does print multiple copies of some books; others are print on demand. Filter Press books are sold on Amazon and on the company’s website: https://www.filterpressbooks.com/

 

 

About Linda DuVal


Linda DuVal was an award-winning reporter/feature writer/section editor at The Gazette in Colorado Springs for 32 years. She has been a freelancer for the past 20 years and has co-authored a guidebook (Insider’s Guide to Colorado Springs) and published a novel (The Lightkeeper) as well as hundreds of articles for various newspapers, magazines and online sites.

Click here for more from Linda DuVal.

Linda DuVal