Archives West Finding Aid

Glen Cameron Adams (1912-2003), the founder of Ye Galleon Press, graduated from Fairfield High School in 1931. He first became involved in printing as an undergraduate at the Eastern Washington College of Education, now known as Eastern Washington University, in March of 1935. Glen Adams founded Ye Galleon Press in 1937 when he acquired his own printing press. It would be another two years before Ye Galleon’s first printing in 1939. It would be a further twenty-five years following Adams’s retirement from the local post office before the press began publishing and selling books in 1964 out of Fairfield, Washington. With the addition of some contemporary books, Ye Galleon Press mostly reprinted and published historical works in relation to Americana, the West, and Pacific Northwest History. Ye Galleon would publish well over 500 books up until its closure shortly after the passing of Glen Adams in 2003. Adams was named an honorary faculty member in the Department of History at Eastern Washington University in 1983. He was among the 100 people selected for the Washington State Centennial Hall of Honor, and he received an honorary doctorate in Letters from Gonzaga University in 1990, all in recognition for his work in publishing primary sources related to Pacific Northwest history.