BOOK ALERTS: My long-awaited book about the history of Holubar was just published, late October 2009. It's the third book in my History of Gear series. Click here to go to page bottom, where you should click on the "Badge" shown, which takes you to a free 15 page PDF preview and the chance to order the book from my publisher. You may do the same for my book about Frostline Kits. Please visit my FROSTLINE PAGE (click here) . To preview or order my book about GERRY (click here)-- ("GERRY, To Live in the Mountains") .....A fourth book is planned for 2010; in it, I plan to pull together several of the smaller gear companies, among them will be A16 and Rivendell Mountain Works.
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. Much of the material below is derived from interviews and correspondence with 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.....Sponsors: if your outdoor company is interested in sponsoring this site, please contact me for details. Publishers: my books are published with "POD" technology, which has freedoms but leads to relatively expensive books; thus, The History of Gear Project is seeking a traditional Publisher.
THE
HOLUBARS: Immediately after World War II, Colorado was a ripe
market for a business targeted to mountaineers and skiers. In
Boulder, Colorado, Alice and Roy Holubar officially opened
for business in 1947 by purchasing a business license.... Roy
was also known as LeRoy Holubar. He and Alice had met as Juniors
in High School, and were fellow students at Colorado University
(CU). LeRoy graduated in 1936 in engineering and taught there
until the demands of Holubar Mountaineering became too great in
the later 1960s.
During the late 1940s, they catered to the
equipment needs of Roy's companions in Colorado Search and Rescue,
and to the needs of the hundreds of 10th Mtn. troops who had either
stayed, or migrated to Colorado after World War II... One climber
remembers that in the late 1950s you'd walk down a walkway at
the Holubars' house on Grandview Ave, go through a gate into the
backyard, and enter the basement via a stairway to find Alice
hard at work sewing!
Images: above, in black and white, is the front cover of 1950 Holubar catalog, which was their first catalog. The picture shows The Maiden, a spire above Boulder in the Flatirons, an early ascent of which it was rumored Roy had participated in.... To the left, with the big logo, is the cover of the 1971 Holubar catalog. The cover is emblazoned with the "Pryamid" version of the company logo, which first appeared in the '63-64 catalog, and emphasized the company's appeal to mountaineers and climbers.
Holubar Mountaineering co-holds with GERRY Mountaineering the title of the very first of the innovative outlets for modern American-made climbing/camping gear in the United States.... In fact, Jack and Joan Stephenson of Warmlite were inspired personally by the Holubars upon the occasion of their 1955 honeymoon trip to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The couple had suffered through a cold, miserable trip until Roy and Alice took the youngsters into their Boulder home and "turned them on" to custom down gear of the highest order. The Stephensons returned to California inspired, and began their own "business in a basement" (Warmlite link).
Their influence did not stop with the Stepensons... In 1962 Bob Swanson rolled into Boulder looking for work. GERRY did not have work for him, but he found welcome with Alice and Roy at Holubar, and worked for them almost a year. Then he moved back to California, where he went to work for Trailwise, met George Marks there, and in 1965 the two of them founded the famous company called Sierra Designs!
In
the Holubar home, Alice, a brillant woman with a Master's degree
in German, was "the brains of the outfit," according
to Lou Barnes (see below). The image
to the left is from the couple's 1950 catalog, which was their
first one......Sometime in the early 1950s, Alice began to design
and sew and sell featherweight sleeping bags that were quantum
leaps ahead of what other American camping firms were offering.
She used the best quality down and enclosed the fluffy stuff in
the cutting-edge modern new shell material called "nylon,"
at first a luscious type called "French" nylon, and
later very lightweight 1.5 oz. ripstops... Many detractors worried
that the lightweight new material wouldn't be strong enough, and
others were sure it wouldn't be downproof, but gradually over
the years the detractors became believers, and by the late 60s
everyone was packing sleeping bags made of nyon. At first Alice
sewed with nylon that was war surplus parachute cloth for the
baffling, and luscious "French nylon" for the shells.
In later years she used modern ripstop nylons.
Roy, who was a math professor in the Engineering Department at Colorado University, had gotten a business license in 1947, and had been importing European gear like Molitor brand boots, and many items of climbing hardware; eg. Salewa, Grivel, and Stubai. In those very early times, circa 1950, Roy did not like Goldline rope, and instead supplied his customers, especially Mountain Rescue, with a made-in- America white, laid 3-strand rope named "Columbian."
Author's personal Holubar connections--- as a poor college student in 1972, it took me a long time to save up enough money for a premium down bag, but when I finally had enough, the choice was clear, and I purchased one of Holubar's premium down bags, in a winter weight, for $137.00. Its 1.2 oz. ripstop nylon shell was a beautiful blue, and it was so sensuously soft, puffy and WARM that I left it out unpacked in the living room just to find excuses to feel it on a daily basis....Its name was "Royalight," which I found out years later was an acronym for "Roy," "Alice" and "lightweight." It was the perfect name choice for such a sleeping bag-- it was very light and it was worth a King's ransom and it was a bag to treat royalty with, oh, and it was a royal shade of blue to boot......I miss that bag! Keith Jimmerson (see below) still fondly owns and uses his Royalight bag, believing it has lost little of its impressive loft even after 30 years! John Whitbeck and his wife both still use their Royalight bags year-around..... Years before the Royalight bag, my very first Holubar product had been their A-framed Mountain Tent, which was the "Royalight," model I (one). It is seen below during a blizzard-plagued snowshoe trip in 1967. We found the tent to be cramped for two guys in winter conditions. Although strong, it did not use use modern, lightweight ripstop nylon in the canopy; instead it used Holubar's own creation, NP-22 (similar to 60/40 cloth, which came along many years after Holubar began using NP-22)... The NP-22 created a tent that was somewhat heavy and opaque-- thus the tent was very dark and glum inside at night or during stormy conditions... On the plus side, it was not supplied with a rain fly, supposedly not needing one....Years later, manufacturers wised-up to the use of cheerful orange and yellow tent canopies, which helped to prevent "tent fever" among expeditionary climbers trapped for days at a time in their tents by severe conditions.
CONTRIBUTORS: Lou Barnes described to me many of the Holubar "firsts," and he should know. Lou is the former Merchandising Manager for Holubar, and was with the Company from 1973 to 1978. While Lou was with the Company, he scored several industry-wide firsts in design and product mix. A second contributor has been Bob Clemen, who worked several Holubar stores between 1976 and 1980, ending up managing the Colorado Springs store under Bob Peto. A third contributor has been Greg Grant, who knew Roy Holubar; Greg worked under John Whitbeck in the Boulder store, 1979-80, and went on to work from 1980-83 in the pseudo-Holubar store in Boulder that was really owned by The North Face! (see below). A fourth contributor has been Keith Jimmerson, who worked in the Denver store on Exposition from about 1969 through 1978. John Whitbeck has also been a contributor; John had managed the Boulder GERRY store on Pearl St, and then was hired by Jim Kack in late 1968, after Alice Holubar's death; this was soon after Roy and Alice had sold the company to Jim Kack (see below). Most recently, I have spoken with Charlie Lincoln, who joined Holubar in 1973 and had risen to General Manager before North Face's take-over in the late 1970s. Even more recently, I have spoken with John Rutkowski, who was Store Manager at the Salt Lake City store, and later at the Glendale, CA store when Holubar bought the Kelty store there. After Holubar closed down its factory, John began Mountain Mend in Boulder, and did Holubar warranty work. Interestingly, he and Charlie got together at this time and sewed up the last dozen Ultimate bags (see image below); they used the nylon shells found when the factory closed down.
60/40 Cloth vs. NP-22 and Origin Story
of the classic "Mountain Parka"---
Oral history states that Alice was perhaps the first person in
the U.S. to commericially sew and sell garments made of 60/40
cloth, such as the famed Holubar Mountain Parka; however, the
most reputable insider sources are totally clear that for some
15 years Holubar used its own innovative fabric, a nylon-cotton
blend, which up until 1961 they called "Everest-type nylon-pima,"
and renamed to "NP-22" in their 1961 catalog. It was
50% nylon on the "warp," and 50% pima cotton on the
"weft," with the "NP" probably standing for
"nylon-pima" and the 22 standing for 1/2 nylon and 1/2
cotton. They sold many of the NP-22 parkas to Colorado Mountain
Rescue (Rocky Mountain Rescue Group)... .Image: NP-22 parka
worn by author's relative in 1972, sporting the trademark optional
leather shoulder rappel patch; this orange-ish color began to
be offered in 1970 for the first time.... ...
Alice's use of a cotton/nylon blend in a shell parka design pre-dates
the founding of Sierra Designs by over a decade (SD is well-known
as the company which originated THE "60/40 Parka," in
the late 1960s).... Keith J. relates that he donated one of Alice's
early NP-22 mountain parkas to the Neptune
Mountaineering Gear Museum. If you are in the Boulder area,
the extensive gear/climbing museum put together by Gary Neptune
is a true "MUST SEE." --Note: in about 1972-74, the
company shifted to using 65/35 cloth, which they called "Storm
Cloth." Of course their parka was still tailored and sewn
to their insane levels of craftsmanship. Holubar could not have
succeeded without the superb sewing skills and commitment to perfection
of first Alice herself, and then later key sewing personnel such
as Janet Folden (and other names that are included in the book
about Holubar, released late October 2009).
Sleeping
Bag Design: arguably, Alice Holubar,
as one of the very first people in the USA working in nylon and
down, created designs and set standards for everybody who was
to follow. Among the firsts Holubar can claim are bags that draped
the sleeper in a wonderful warm embrace due to the use of a purposefully
non-differential cut. Alice also perfected the use of the "V"
baffle and longitudinal baffle construction. Such inner construction,
coupled with the innovative down-filled collar (the "Holubar
Collar") made Holubar bags the preferred choice of many early
Himalayan and Alaskan mountaineers during the 50s and 60s (before
most of the big-name Companys like North Face or Sierra Designs
had even opened their doors). An interesting story in this regard
is about the naming of their down collar, which was called the
"Kara Koram collar" for years, until the use was challenged
by Eddie Bauer, who also had a line of expedition-oriented down
gear (click for more).....Pictured
is the Holubar top of the line expeditionary bag, from their 1975
catalog. This 40-below zero-rated monster contained 4 lbs. 3 oz.
of superb down and is the only bag I have ever seen that was covered
in an ultra-ultra light 0.75 oz. nylon.... In todays dollars,
its price seems unbelievably low, a mere $215.00. At least one
company insider states that the Ultimate, and also the Paragon
clothing below were excessively warm for anything but the most
extreme arctic/antarctic/high altitude survival-type conditions!
Down
Insulated Clothing: Lou stated strongly,
"Holubar Mountaineering, (was) a Boulder-native specialty
retail chain and catalog house which manufactured possibly the
best down-insulated clothing ever made." He described to
me proudly the Holubar "Paragon Parka," which was a
completely V-baffled expedition parka of the very highest caliber.
With the beautiful baffling and a full 30 oz. of top-quality down,
this parka was very popular in Antarctica, with Himalayan expeditions,
and also was ordered by the military for some of their extreme
outposts, such as on the DEW Line. This image of the Paragon is
from the 1975 Holubar catalog, where this beauty cost only $155.00.
You could also purchase a matching pair of fully V-baffled down
pants for $110.00, which could be zipped into a toasty sleeping
bag for your lower half!
Many of the Holubar designs are still so popular that when an example comes up on eBay, it gets many bidders and sells for a lot more than it cost when new, 30 years ago! As an example, a pair of ladies down-filled mittens recently sold for $32, with 8 bidders fighting over the privilege of owning them!
By 1979, Holubar had expanded into a chain of ten retail stores, with storefronts in Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins and in Colorado Springs. There were also five out-of-state locatons: Edina, Minnesota; Salt Lake City, Utah; Phoenix, Arizona; Tempe, Arizona; Santa Ana, California, and Glendale, California (click for detail about the Kelty connection). In addition to the stores, Holubar owned a large in-house manufacturing operation, and a huge kit-selling enterprise (Carikit) that had its own catalog (see image on page bottom , taken from 1978 kit catalog). This kit component challenged Frostline, the giant kit company of the times. And of course Holubar had a robust catalog sales division as well, presided over by Byron Evenson......But only a year or two later, Holubar was gone forever.
THE EXIT OF ROY AND ALICE FROM THE BUSINESS----
In a way, the stage had been set eleven years previously, in 1968.
That was when two key events had occurred. The first led to the
second. Alice Holubar contracted cancer and passed away late in
1968 (Roy continued to live in their home at 1215 Grandview until
his death in 1992)....Earlier in 1968, because of her condition,
Roy and Alice had decided to travel as much as they could, and
that had meant selling the business, in about March, to an enterprising
25 year old MBA named Jim Kack from North Dakota (born
1941). 
Mr. Kack
wasn't a climber but did enjoy fly fishing and other outdoor pursuits.
The picture of Mr. Kack to the left is from the recent Holubar
Reunion in Boulder, in July 2008 (image compliments of John Rutkowski).
Kack was the able businessman whose vision expanded the Company vastly in just a few years, with the able assistance of such key employees as Bob McFetridge and John Whitbeck. Soon Holubar became such an exemplary business success story that by 1974-75 it caught the eye of Johnson Wax ("Pledge" wax, "Off" insect repellant; "Edge" shaving gel, among others). Kack sold Holubar to Johnson Wax at this point. Holubar's new owner was truly a corporate giant with many resources and talents, and it purchased Holubar at the same time it was busy buying up a number of other high-quality outdoor gear companies, eg. Eureka tents; Old Town Canoe, Camp Trails packs, and Leonard Rod.
Unfortunately, Holubar did not thrive under Johnson Wax, although most seem to agree that it was no one's fault in particular. Huge amounts of effort were expended for about 4 years in trying to find a financially viable direction for the now-struggling company, but the end was nearing when Johnson Wax took semi-truck loads full of Holubar Kits to its Racine, Wisconsin headquarters in about 1980 and sold them out of the back of the trucks for pennies on the dollar. An economic recession was afoot in the U.S., fueling store closings at about the same time. Sometime in 1980, Johnson Wax made the hard decision to close down Holubar's remaining operations.
In a piece of serious irony, Lou Barnes, the ex-merchandising manager for Holubar, had switched careers and was in Boulder in 1980 working as a real-estate person. It was he who managed the sale of the Boulder holdings of Holubar, which included the retail store on 30th Ave., the Administration headquarters on 55th St., the warehouse, and the manufacturing plant. (Note: the original retail location prior to 30th Ave. had been a much smaller place on 13th St., across from Flatirons theater, a block off campus)..... The real estate proceeds went to the Company's corporate owner, Johnson Wax.......
The Pseudo-Holubar Days: The September 1981 "North Face Newsletter"
proudly announced its acquisition of Holubar from Johnson Wax;
Hap Klopp himself signed
the landmark newsletter. The nine Holubar stores in three
States, the Holubar name, and all the inventory became North Face's...
Greg
Grant remembers how The North Face swiftly established itself
at the 30th Ave. main store in Boulder, but left all the Holubar
signs in place (30th Ave. was the original Holubar store, and
had originally also contained both headquarters and the sewing
operation). Sometime in 1981, a planned shopping mall forced the
closure of the original store, and pseudo-Holubar moved to South
Broadway St., and was still using the Holubar name in 1983 when
Greg left. ....Greg said, "We would receive North Face payroll
checks, but our signs all said Holubar....no one would have known
we were owned by the North Face unless we told them." This
pseudo Holubar at first was selling many brand names,including
actual old Holubar-made inventory, but later "Holubar"
labelled garments were really being made by North Face in Berkeley,
but in gradually diminishing numbers. It remains unclear at this
point in my research exactly when "Holubar" labelled
gear stopped being manufactured and sold by North Face. Eventually,
though, the Holubar name seems to have been let to die by North
Face. (The North Face itself was later absorbed by a major corporation,
click here for details about
its fate)
But former Colorado Springs Manager Bob Clemen has a final Holubar report, "One interesting twist -- when I was back in Colorado Springs in 1990 for a High School Reunion, I discovered that a couple of people had resurrected and licensed the old original Holubar logo, and they had opened a Holubar store in one of the shopping centers there. No relation to the previous company except for the name and the logo. I have no idea if the store is still there." As a sidenote to this story, I will note that the Colorado government site that lists businesses and their registered names has NO listings for "Holubar," and those listings generally go back at least 15-20 years, so we can conclude sadly that "Holubar" as an official business name in Colorado is no more.
R.I.P. Holubar, 1947 to 1980, or shall we count the pseudo-Holubar as the real deal? In which case it becomes R.I.P. Holubar, 1947 to November 21,1985, when the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper announced that the "Holubar" sign on the Boulder store was coming down and being replaced by "The North Face" signs... Some might think the "Thanksgiving" timing was in poor taste!.....But then again, maybe the ghost of Holubar is still alive and about to open a store somewhere in Colorado! You decide!
Gerry
Cunningham (click for two full pages about GERRY) This innovator and climber also lived in the Boulder
area. He was one of the very early pioneers, and founded his company
in 1946, the same year as Holubar Mountaineering....... In any
case, Gerry C. was a veteran of WW II and is now 84 years old
(2006). At some point, probably in the Sixties, he opened his
main store in Denver. Notes: "GERRY" is a well-known
brand which has continued to produce gear, mostly clothing for
skiers, for many decades. Gerry Cunningham himself resigned from
the Company decades ago, and it is not yet clear to me how to
explain labels such as those on the left which are in fairly recently
made clothing and claim that the Company's location is in Seattle.
Probably GERRY (the company) was long ago absorbed by a big corporation;
that corporation's name may be "Outdoor Products Company.".
(Source: emails with Gerry Cunningham)...
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 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.
Above is the front and back cover of the 1978 Holubar Mountaineering Ltd. Kit catalog. Shown are the famous "Flatirons," a climbing/hiking mecca right in the backyard of the Holubar offices/stores in Boulder. I will bet you money that the string of hikers are all Holubar employees! Can anyone identify any of these folks?
