Please Note: All Material below, and in all my "History of Gear" webpages, is copyrighted, and no usage of my material is permitted unless explicit permission is granted by me, Bruce B. Johnson, owner of OregonPhotos.com. Some of the material below is derived from interviews and/or correspondence with Gerry Cunningham and also from some ex-Holubar employees, as well as my own research..... Editors: Please contact me if you have interest in publishing....Others: if you were involved with one of the old-line, vintage gear companies and have a story to tell in these pages, please contact me soon.
MY BOOK ABOUT GERRY IS NOW PUBLISHED! You may see a PDF preview of its first 15 pages on my publisher's website, which is one way to order it. Or, you can contact me directly and achieve a 5-10% lower price. Brief detail: the title is "GERRY, To Live in the Mountains," and it's 78 pages long in a profusely illustrated, full-color 10x8 inch format rich with text and interesting direct quotations from Mr. Cunningham. At page bottom you will find a "Badge" of my Publisher. Follow the insructions to get to the PDF preview.....Additional note: my book about Frostline Kits of Colorado is also available. Please go to my Frostline page to order it, or to view a book preview.... Also, please note that my next planned book is well underway and will cover the story of Holubar Mountaineering Ltd.
Immediately
after World War II, Colorado was a ripe market for a business
targeted to mountaineers and skiers. Gerry Cunningham was
another of the originators who lived in or around Boulder. He
is clearly one of the very most important inventors among the
early Gear innovators; in so many ways, a Pioneer of major stature.
He was a World War II veteran, and had been cooking up gear innovations even before the War interferred with his plans. Gerry for many years was quite a mountaineer in his own right. He was friends with many of the big name climbers of the 50s and 60s, and supplied the likes of Barry Bishop, Lute Jerstad, Willie Unsoeld, Tom Hornbein, Pete Schoening, Bob Craig, Dee Molenaar, Art Gilkey, Charlie Houston, and Bob Bates with the GERRY Himalayan Tent and other GERRY gear.
The company officially began right after Mr. Cunningham mustered out of the Army in mid-1945, and for a brief time was based in Upper New York State. By 1946 Cunningham had moved his new business and his wife to Colorado,opening his business there at just about the same time as Roy and Alice Holubar began their outdoor gear business in Boulder..... In those very early post-War years, Gerry's equipment carried a woven label with the original "Gerry" logo, and the words "Gerry Mountaineering Equipment Company," and if you find gear with that original label, much of it was sewn by Mr. Cunningham himself, and is very collectible. Note: the original logo is shown in the image of the 1946 catalog- it was a mountain peak with what looks like a handwritten "Gerry" across the bottom of the peak (the logo in the other images seen on this page are the more stylized version that became the standard for later years).
Regarding the Holubars, Gerry told me, " I was never an employee of Holubar. The only contact I had with him (Roy) was to sell him surplus army gear which I had access to as an ex-GI and he didn't. I sold him sleeping bags and ice axes as I remember." G. A. Cunningham.
Regarding Frostline Kits, Gerry remembered fondly the early days circa 1960, "....I sold kits to make gear in 1955, but when Dale and Julie Johnson joined me, we couldn't keep up with the orders for finished products, so discontinued the kits. Dale and Julie of course went on later to make a roaring success of themselves with Frostline."
GERRY'S speciality in the company's mid-later years became "down insulated clothing," most particularly ski apparel; their factory was in Alamosa, Colorado. However, during the early years, Gerry Cunningham and his wife Ann designed, patented and sold several outdoor gear innovations entirely unrelated to clothing, of which I will mention just two (for that discussion, see below)
GERRY'S
Famous Booklet Series: Begining
about 1966 and into the early Seventies Gerry Cunningham wrote
a series of at least six free booklets that are now collectibles.
Size: 5x7 inches, except for "Wilderness Traveler,"
which is slightly larger.
"How to Keep Warm," 1967. Its opening sentence, "If your feet are cold, put your hat on," is shown in the image. For decades, that proverbial sentence has been drilled into the minds of everyone who takes an outdoor course on winter survival. The 15 page booklet is crammed with other similarly timeless wisdom, and I recommend it highly. (Note: all images on this page are custom creations of OregonPhotos.com and are copyrighted; the original booklet of course continues to be under its own copyright).... The picture below shows Mr. Cunningham in the 1970 GERRY catalog. It's from a page where he discusses in depth "How to Keep Warm." He's probably in his late-forties in the picture.
The other four booklets in my collection are dated between 1967 and 1972 (larger images available).
"How to Camp and Leave No Trace,"
This 15 page classic outlines an
ethic that has become mandatory in all programs teaching backpacking.
I suspect that famous environmentalist John Muir germinated this
ethic many decades before in his edict, "Leave no mark except
your shadow." ....In modern times, Cunningham's "No
Trace" ethic is similar to Yvon Chouinard's famous "Clean
Climbing" ethic*, as published in Chouinard's classic 1972
catalog.
The
date on my copy of this GERRY booklet is 1972...(* actually, clean
climbing in the USA can be traced to Royal Robbins in 1966-67
bringing back the first climbing nuts from Joe Brown's shop in
Great Britian, and thence to Doug Robinson's seminal article "The
Whole Natural Art of Protection," as written for his friend
Chouinard's 1972 catalog)
"How to Enjoy Backpacking," 15 pages, eeriely foreshadows the modern backpacking revolution centering around "ultralight" gear, and the slim booklet's wisdom still rings true despite the advent of a number of high-tech materials and advanced hard goods since the time it was written. Shown is my 1972 copy; I also own a mint 1966 version of this booklet, which may have been the very first of Mr. Cunningham's booklet series
Booklets not pictured: "Wilderness Trips You can Enjoy" 1967. "Food Packing for Backpacking," 1970. And the 5 1/2 x 8 inch sized "Wilderness Traveler," 1968. (I have images of these three booklets)...
Also not pictured: "Light Weight Camping Equipment and How To Make It," by Gerry Cunningham and Margaret Hansson. This is a true book, a bit over 100 pages, first published in 1959. This is an interesting and important story. It will be covered fully, with text and pictures, in the book about GERRY that I am currently working on.
Gerry
Cunningham invented and patented the "Drawstring Clamp"
sometime in those very early years (the 1950s is my estimate).
Later to become known as the "Cordlock," this
small device replaces knots and has become omni-present in today's
society, even reaching into areas having nothing to do with backpacking
or climbing!
Gerry and his wife Ann also experimented
with the first modern baby carriers, and patented their original
design in 1963 as their "Gerry Kiddie Carrier."
Innovations included the use of lightweight aluminum for its "S"
curved frame, and lightweight nylons for the material. It was
to sell for some forty years! Many of us as infants and toddlers
spent hours in the out-of-doors in a Gerry Kiddie Carrier, and
the close parent-to-child contact these carriers allowed led to
some life-long pleasant associations to the outdoor world.........The
third GERRY innovation I will mention here is the GERRY squeeze
tube, invented circa 1955 to support Gerry's "Go Light,
Leave No Trace" backpacking philosophy.... 
Here's
how these tubes worked: you would open up the bottom of the GERRY
plastic tube, which resembled a toothpaste tube. Then you would
insert the gloopy, messy food of your choice and re-seal the tube,
which dispensed out the top, just like toothpaste! In this way,
you automatically left behind the glass jar, reducing weight in
your pack, and never being tempted to toss the used-up jar out
into the forest! My "tube" favorites were peanut butter
and jelly, but I've seen creative cooks squeezing an amazing variety
of stuff out of these tubes. Once on a winter trip in the Tetons,
I witnessed frozen orange juice being oozed out onto some kind
of chicken dish!.... I believe these tubes are now in common circulation
as an outdoor product, no longer branded "GERRY."
Down Insulated Clothing: GERRY-branded ski apparel and down garments rose to prominence at the 1960 or 1964 Winter Olympics, where GERRY insulated parkas were worn by the Olympic Committee members and caught the buying public's eye...This moved GERRY firmly into the "skiwear" category and further away from its mountaineering gear roots...... The ski apparel and down garment type of GERRY product is still commonly available at such places as eBay. Whether or not they are "really" GERRY is unclear (see below)
Gerry Cunningham himself is now 84 years old (2006) and living in warmer West Coast climates in the mountains of Arizona.... He retired from the company decades ago (1970).... He noted to me that the brand name "GERRY" is still in use, but he doesn't know details and doesn't follow such matters anymore. He states that his last substantial contact with his old company was in 1991. At that time, he was honored among the select group of Pioneers of the Industry at the annual meeting of the Outdoor Retailers Association in Reno... Here he met Paul Jamison, then President of GERRY, which was then based in Seattle.... Gerry remembers that he and his wife Ann were honored and wined and dined by Mr. Jamison... But in subsequent years there were new corporate owners (see below)....(Source: emails with Gerry Cunningham and written material from him).
the
label on the left shows that "GERRY" was founded in
1946, the same year as Holubar Mountaineering..... Mr. Cunningham's
first two real stores were in Boulder, and at some point, probably
in the Mid-Sixties, he opened his main store in Denver. Notes:
you can find "GERRY" labels on recently made outdoor
clothing; those will state that the Company's location is now
in Seattle (see image above)..... GERRY (the company) was long
ago absorbed by a big corporation; eg., the 1972 booklets state
the company's circa 1972 ownership in this way on their back covers:
"Gerry Division of Outdoor Sports Industries Inc., Denver,
Colo." A different version comes from 1966 literature: "Colorado
Outdoor Sports Co., Division of Outdoor Sports Industries, Inc."
(as shown on the1966 booklet "How to Enjoy Backpacking.").
I have also seen a GERRY garment label with text about "Outdoor
Products Company.".... Much more recently, one can trace the GERRY brand
to a big corporation named Amerex-- here's a quote from their
website: "New York, NY - (September 4, 2002) - Amerex
Group Inc. one of the largest privately-held U.S.-based manufacturers
of quality outerwear and The National Standard Race (NASTAR),
the largest public grassroots recreational ski race program, today
announced that Amerex's proprietary brand Gerry® will become
the national sponsor of the "Jeep King Of The Mountain NASTAR"
2003-04 race season...." The new motto I saw there on the
company website was "GERRY, Bold in the Cold." Their
site has a short, well-written history section about the GERRY
brand, and it includes a picture
of Gerry and his wife Ann.
BREAKING NEWS: the modern GERRY Website recently brings up this sad message: "gerryinternational.com expired on 10/27/2007 and is pending renewal or deletion." (Network Solutions)....Is the GERRY brand now facing its final extinction? Do any readers know the story behind this development? December 29, 2007 Update: it appears true that GERRY has now become extinct. The Gerry website has now become only a "portal" site, and provides numerous links to all kinds of services and companies, including, ironically, a link for down vests that leads one to, of all places, REI.
Remarkably different has been the business course of the small custom gearmaker Stephenson's Warmlite, which has never changed its name or ownership in some 40 years of doing business!
Please Note: All Material above, and in all my "History
of Gear" webpages, is copyrighted, and no usage of my material
is permitted unless explicit permission is granted by me, Bruce
B. Johnson, owner of OregonPhotos.com. Some of the material above
is derived from interviews and correspondence with both Gerry
Cunningham and ex-Holubar employees.... Editors: Please contact me if you have interest
in publishing....Others: if you were involved
with one of the old-line, vintage gear companies and have a story
to tell in these pages, please contact me soon.
