07/03/2026
Thanks again to Everyone who attended the latest Travel Bug Book Presentation! We look forward to the next one.
Friday, June 26, 2026
​4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
at the Travel Bug Bookstore
839 Paseo de Peralta
Jack Rittenhouse
A Western Literary Life
​by David R. Farmer
Jack Rittenhouse, an active member of the Old Santa Fe Association in the 1960s, is the subject of this new biography by author David R. Farmer. Farmer presents the story of a Hoosier boy forced to drop out of college for lack of funds during the Depression and who rode the rails with hobos to New York where he wanted to work in the publishing business. During a stint in the mailroom at Alfred A. Knopf assigned to open all correspondence, he took the opportunity to learn about the book publishing business in the 1930s while reading letters written by Willa Cather, H. L. Mencke, and the many more accomplished writers, designers and printers associated with Knopf.
​
By the time Rittenhouse settled in Santa Fe in 1962, he had written and published the first complete guide to Route 66, A Guide Book to Highway 66, that is still in print 80 years later. He launched his own publishing business, Stagecoach Press, operated an advertising agency, and built an antiquarian bookselling business. In addition, he was a founding member of the Western History Association, was president of the Historical Society of New Mexico (1967-1971), named Director of the Museum of New Mexico Press, and was Editor of Western Books at UNM Press.
Rittenhouse's close friends included fine printers in Santa Fe such as Walter Goodwin and Gustave Baumann, architect John Gaw Meem, historians and writers such as Jack Schaefer (author of Shane) and Marc Simmons (the leading authority on the Santa Fe Trail). He wrote and printed an attractive brochure for the Old Santa Fe Association titled History Helps Progress which promoted historic preservation in Santa Fe.
This book can be purchased at the Travel Bug, Collected Works and Garcia Street Books.
