. please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information . august 2016 stackpole books founded 1930 founder e. j. stackpole jr. country of origin united states headquarters location mechanicsburg pennsylvania publication types books nonfiction topics fly fishing outdoor sports nature military history military reference imprints stackpole books stackpole magazines headwater books ryton books official website www.stackpolebooks.com stackpole books is an independent trade publishing company in mechanicsburg pennsylvania . it was founded by e. j. stackpole jr. in harrisburg pennsylvania in 1930 and was moved to its current headquarters in 1993 . stackpole publishes nonfiction books in the areas of crafts outdoors regional and travel military history and military reference . the current ceo is m. david detweiler and the publisher and editorial director is judith schnell . history edit the publishing company that became stackpole books has its origins with the harrisburg newspaper evening telegraph which was founded in the early 19th century . in 1901 controlling interest in the telegraph press was acquired by e. j. stackpole sr. 1 the business was carried on by stackpole s son edward james stackpole jr. a decorated general in world war i who received the distinguished service cross the silver star and three purple hearts . 2 in 1930 the national service publishing company of washington dc which had been established in 1921 was acquired by telegraph . renamed military service publishing company it published textbooks for the military services including army officer s guide which is still in print in an updated edition by stackpole books . also in 1930 e. j. stackpole jr. and his brother albert stackpole began a trade company called stackpole sons with additional offices in new york city . stackpole sons published books starting in 1936 3 on a variety of subjects including fiction by damon runyon and john fante 4 and autobiographies by benny goodman 5 and huey long . both military service publishing company and stackpole sons were divisions of telegraph press . a brief merger of stackpole sons with the heck company in the 1940s resulted in the short lived stackpole & heck . after the union dissolved the trade division became the stackpole company . during world war ii military services publishing company produced small inexpensive paperback reprints of fiction titles for soldiers . about twice the size of armed services editions ases these books were still small enough to carry easily in military uniform cargo pockets . these superior reprints complemented the ase titles and leaned toward mystery and detective fiction including such works as graham greene s this gun for hire liam o flaherty s the informer and frank gruber s the mighty blockhead . like the ases these books were entertaining and noncontroversial in content ; but unlike the ases they were not free to the soldiers . in the 1950s stackpole developed a strong emphasis on nonfiction books especially outdoors and history titles . in outdoors the house published several successful and well regarded works by wilderness survivalist bradford angier including feasting free on wild edibles field guide to edible wild plants field guide to medicinal wild plants and looking for gold all of which are still in print today in new editions . e. j. stackpole jr. himself was an esteemed author of american civil war history ; his popular titles for the house are they met at gettysburg the fredericksburg campaign chancellorsville and sheridan in the shenandoah . in 1959 stackpole and military service merged into a single company stackpole books . citation needed in recent years the house has continued publishing in military reference history and outdoors . in the latter category stackpole has been especially noted for their books on fly fishing . new lines include crafts and regional and travel . in 2015 stackpole books was bought by rowman littlefield . 6 references edit stackpole e. j. behind the scenes with a newspaper man . philadelphia j. b. lippincott 1927 . gen. e. j. stackpole dies at age of 73 patriot news october 2 1967 ; lt. gen. e. j. stackpole obituary variety october 11 1967 . book notes the new york times . april 20 1936 . page 15 . cooper stephen . full of life a biography of john fante . new york north point press 2000 pp. 131 148 49 156 160 61 169 184 88 210 270 . firestone ross . swing swing swing the life and times of benny goodman . new york w. w. norton 1993 pp. 257 59 . milliot jim 17 december 2015 . rowman & littlefield buys stackpole books . publishers weekly . retrieved 2 october 2016 . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title stackpole books & oldid 742186011 categories book publishing companies based in pennsylvaniacompanies based in harrisburg pennsylvaniapublishing companies established in 19301930 establishments in pennsylvaniahidden categories wikipedia articles in need of updating from august 2016all wikipedia articles in need of updatingall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from july 2012 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 2 october 2016 at 05 33 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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