BOZEMAN – Peter Rutledge Koch, an internationally renowned printer, book designer, publisher and artist whose family played an integral role in the cultural and intellectual history of Montana and Montana State University, will give a free, public lecture at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, in Norm Asbjornson Hall Room 165 at MSU.
Koch will discuss his recent book “Bookmen on the Montana Frontier,” which explores the history of the Koch family book collection that dates back to Montana’s territorial period.
Koch is a descendant of Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch, who was born in Denmark in 1844 and arrived in Montana in 1869, drawn by the gold rush. Unlike some of the more legendary figures of Montana’s frontier history, Koch was not much of a cowboy. As former MSU Special Collections librarian Kim Scott observed, he “never herded cattle or wore a six shooter or sat in a saloon driving and playing cards.”
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Instead, Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch helped build something more enduring: MSU. As Scott put it, “John Bozeman left his name, (Nelson) Story left a legend, but Koch left us a university.”
Beginning as a woodcutter along the Missouri River, Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch eventually became a successful Bozeman banker, a passionate collector of books and an advocate for public libraries. He helped establish Bozeman’s first library in 1873 and later played a central role in the founding and early development of Montana’s agricultural college, now MSU. Although the college was intended primarily to teach agriculture and the practical sciences, Koch insisted that students also needed a broad liberal education in the humanities.
According to Timothy LeCain, head of MSU’s Department of History and Philosophy in the College of Letters and Science, that commitment to books, learning and the life of the mind has continued across generations of the Koch family, and perhaps nowhere more than in the career of Peter Rutledge Koch. LeCain said Koch’s work combines traditional craftsmanship, innovative design and a deep appreciation for the book as a physical object. Koch is also the founder of the CODEX Foundation, which promotes the art of the book internationally.
“In an age when so much of what we read and write exists only on screens, Peter’s life and work remind us that books are more than containers of information,” LeCain said. “They are also beautifully crafted material objects that connect us to our history, to one another and to the world around us.”
Peter Rutledge Koch’s appearance is part of the Elers Koch Lecture Series, which was established in 2022 to honor Koch’s grandfather Elers Koch, a 1901 Montana State College graduate who spent most of his 40-year career with the U.S. Forest Service in Missoula.
The lecture is sponsored by MSU’s Department of History and Philosophy and School of Art. For more information, contact Kaitlin Walsh at 406-994-4396.
