What's in Your Attic, Sally McCoy? Seeking Outdoor Biz Documents

Utah State University Special Collections and Archives, in conjunction with the school’s Outdoor Product Development and Design program, is building a research collection for scholars and enthusiasts of outdoor recreation history in the Intermountain West.

To date, our collection consists of approximately 1,000 outdoor product catalogs dating from the early 1900s to the early 2000s, published by dozens of outdoor gear fabricators and retailers from Chouinard and Sierra Designs to L.L. Bean and Abercrombie & Fitch. Some catalog runs are more complete than others, so we would be interested in speaking with anyone who has this type of material and might be willing to contribute issues to our collection.

We hope to supplement these published materials with personal and business records from outdoor product manufacturers, retailers, and notable outdoor enthusiasts. These materials may include correspondence, field journals, reports, photographs and other unpublished items. 

Finally, we are also interested in collecting outdoor recreation guides (i.e. climbing, hiking, mountain biking, river running etc.), particularly those that relate to the Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and western Colorado region.

If you think you might have any materials like these, or know someone who does, please contact our manuscript curator, Clint Pumphrey at clint.pumphrey@usu.edu to discuss your potential contribution. Through this effort, we hope to capture the legacy of this important and growing industry for generations of researchers and recreationists to come.