Orvis
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| Private | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1856 |
| Founder | Charles F. Orvis |
| Headquarters | Sunderland, Vermont |
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Number of locations
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91 retail stores, 10 outlet stores |
| Products | Clothing, gift/home, fly fishing, dogs, luggage and outdoor equipment |
| Website | orvis |
Orvis is a family-owned retail and mail-order business specializing in high-end fly fishing, hunting and sporting goods. Founded in Manchester, Vermont, in 1856 by Charles F. Orvis to sell fishing tackle, it is the oldest mail-order retailer in the United States.
Characterized by the leading fly-fishing trade journal as an "800-pound gorilla" in the fly-fishing industry, Orvis is recognized for its "unparalleled influence on the sport" and outstanding customer service. The company has changed hands only twice and has had only five CEOs in its history.
Charles F. Orvis opened a tackle shop in Manchester, Vermont, in 1856. His 1874 fly reel was described by reel historian Jim Brown as the "benchmark of American reel design," the first fully modern fly reel. His elegantly printed tackle catalogs distributed to a small but devoted customer list in the late 19th century, were the early forerunners of today's enormous direct-mail outdoor products industry.
Charles's daughter, Mary Orvis Marbury, took charge of the Orvis fly department in the 1870s. By 1892, when she published a milestone encyclopedic reference book on fly patterns—Favorite Flies and Their Histories—Orvis had emerged as the country's foremost arbiter of fly-pattern authenticity and style.
Following Charles's death in 1915, sons Albert and Robert managed the company until the 1930s, when it essentially collapsed during the Depression. Investors, led by Philadelphia businessman-sportsman Dudley Corkran, purchased Orvis in 1939 for US$4,500, and quickly revitalized the business. Corkran hired master bamboo rodbuilder Wes Jordan, who by the late 1940s had developed a Bakelite impregnation process that made Orvis bamboo rods uniquely impervious to weather, rot, and other perennial perils.
In 1965, Corkran sold the firm to Leigh H. Perkins for $400,000. Perkins recognized the opportunity to make Orvis synonymous not only with fly fishing but with an entire way of life, and greatly enlarged the product line into gifts and clothing. Described by contemporaries as a genius at mail order, Perkins pioneered the trading of customer mailing lists among his chief competitors, including L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer and Norm Thompson.
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Wikipedia