Cobblestone Press was a British Columbia private press established by Gerald Giampa in 1964. Giampa was born in 1950 in a Jones Tent & Awning work-camp tent in Duncan, British Columbia. His career as a typographer and a fine book printer began at age thirteen when he purchased a hand-fed platen press from George Kuthan, a famous Czechoslovakian Canadian lino-cut artist. At that time Giampa mentored under Wil Hudson, printer and publisher. Wil had come from San Francisco to set up shop in Vancouver. In 1964, at age 14, Giampa left home and founded Cobblestone Press, book publishers. For a brief period afterwards he ran away to sea without a passport and was set ashore in San Francisco where he met Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and spent some time with Janis Joplin. While in San Francisco, Giampa bought the Lanston type company from Mackenzie and Harris of San Francisco, and manufactured matrices, type and other equipment to keep old monotype machines working. Giampa returned to Vancouver, set up shop, and lived off his printing skills for the rest of his life. Giampa passed away in June 2009.
The Cobblestone Press Society with its journal, The Fount, developed from the Press.