Word: beans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Leon Leonwood Bean sent a one-page circular advertising his new rubber hunting shoe to every person with a Maine hunting licence. He developed the boot, at least according to legend, because he was tired of coming back from hunting trips with aching, wrinkled feet...
...every one of the past few years, the women's squash team from Phillips Exeter Academy heads north for a match with Bowdoin. The trips takes the team past Freeport, Me., home of the store that grew from Mr. Bean's first advertisement. And as the bus rumbles out of Exeter, the coach reminds the young ladies that they will be stopping at the Bean emporium. Much cheering. At least an hour is reserved for the stop; "people come away with huge packages," a former racquetwoman recalls. It is widely rumored that no member of the Exeter squash team holds...
Leon Leonwood, always well-protected from the elements in his Bean gear, ran the operation himself until he died at the age of 94, in 1967. "He was strictly a 19th-century character," Bean public affairs director Kilt Andrews insists. But the stout-hearted State of Mainer, who hailed from the Bethel area, possessed at least a little savvy when it came to business. His chamois shirts, his touring canoes and campstoves, and most of all his Maine hunting boots supported a $4.75-million mini-empire when he expired...
Next in line was a grandson, Leon Gorman, and his constitution has proved hardier than poor Carl's. In fact, the Gorman years have seen the L. L. Bean operation grow into a giant business, with nearly $120 million in net sales expected this year. To begin with, there was motivation. "When Leon took over, it was sink or swim. Old L. L. had always said, 'I'm getting three square meals a day from this and I don't need a fourth.' And at 94, you can bet to hell L. L. wasn't humping it too hard," Andrews...
Leon's vision was of a broader market for the Bean line: His grandfather focused almost totally on hunting, fishing and camping; Leon added a fourth category--attending social functions. L. L. had advertised in Field & Stream; his grandson began buying space in the New Yorker, Smithsonian, and a host of other publications. Gun-toting hunters had beat a path to L. L.'s door in his lifetime; they have been joined in years since by racquet-toting preppies...