The History of Coleman – Camping & Caravan Direct

A Light on the Prairie: The Story of Coleman

More than a century ago, a young man with an entrepreneurial streak and a better idea began making lanterns in Wichita, Kansas. His name was W.C. Coleman, and the company he founded would go on to change life in America. It is a story full of historical significance, remarkable innovations and a few genuinely surprising details.

A Man with Poor Eyesight but Remarkable Vision

It began simply enough. In 1900, a young man hoping to replenish his education fund so he could finish his final year of law school set out to sell lamps in what is now Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He had first come across the lantern that would change his life in a drugstore window in Alabama.

Plagued by such poor vision that he sometimes had to ask classmates to read aloud to him, W.C. Coleman was stopped in his tracks by the brilliant light in that window. He went inside to ask about it and found he could read even the small print on a medicine bottle by its glow.

The lantern used mantles rather than wicks and was fuelled by pressurised gasoline instead of coal oil. The light was clean and white. When Coleman heard the company was looking for salesmen, he used his savings to buy stock. He was sure he could sell these lights in an instant to merchants who wanted to keep their shops open in the evening.

As it turned out, he could not sell a single one. Shopkeepers in Kingfisher had just been stung by a lighting salesman with a less than stellar product, and they would not be swayed. So, using the ingenuity and resourcefulness that would later build his company, W.C. decided to sell a lighting service instead of the lanterns themselves. He drew up contracts with a “no light, no pay” clause, and with the risk removed, customers signed up.

Soon Kingfisher was a beacon on the prairie. The service eventually expanded to cities as far west as San Diego and Las Vegas. In 1902, Coleman relocated to Wichita, Kansas, reasoning that it would sit roughly at the centre of his potential territory. In time, that territory would come to encompass the world.

The Sunshine of the Night

Coleman was able to buy the inventory and patents for the Efficient Lantern in 1901. After years of servicing the lights, he knew he could design a better product, and he knew there would be an eager market for it.

Electric service was unreliable in urban areas and unavailable in rural ones, and would remain so for many years. In 1909, Coleman introduced a portable table lamp that became a staple in rural homes. In 1914, the young company introduced the lantern that made it famous. At 300 candlepower, it could light the far corners of a barn and cast good light in every direction for 100 yards.

The Coleman lantern extended the hours farmers and ranchers could work, significantly increasing productivity. It changed life in rural America, and during the First World War the government declared it an essential item. Nearly 70,000 were sold.

By the close of the decade, the company was a bona fide manufacturer. It had an organised sales force and a research and development department, and factory output had risen from 120 lanterns in 1909 to 50,000 by 1920.

Coleman Hits the Road

After the war, people had money and were ready to enjoy themselves. The automobile was no longer a novelty. Prices made cars affordable for many families, and with mobility came the urge to travel and explore. The vacation business was booming, and Coleman took advantage of it.

Motor camping became the rage. Travellers lashed their belongings to their running boards and set off. Roadways were improving, but they were not dotted with places to stay, so people camped by the roadside.

The fold-up camping stove Coleman developed in 1923 quickly found favour with the auto camping crowd. To retailers, the two-burner was billed as a “keen cooker and a quick seller”. It found its way onto front porches and into hunting lodges, vacation cabins and camping trailers. Along with the lantern, which had suddenly found a new market, the camp stove made an ideal travelling companion.

During the next decade, Coleman would overtake its competitors and dominate the market.

A Little Industrial Complex on the Prairie

W.C. Coleman surrounded himself with talented people, including his son Sheldon, who had a degree in mechanical engineering and first-hand production experience from working at the company’s Canadian plant.

As markets evaporated with widespread rural electrification, the younger Coleman lobbied for further product diversification. The company began turning out gas floor furnaces and oil space heaters that would enable it to survive the Depression. Its manufacturing capabilities were now considerable. Coleman was said to have the largest number of working metal lathes west of the Mississippi, and they would soon see heavy action.

The Heat of Battle

The Coleman company’s biggest customer became the U.S. military. During the Second World War, its Wichita plants produced projectiles for the Navy and parts for B-17 and B-29 bombers. But its most valuable contribution to the war effort was the development of the GI Pocket Stove. The specifications seemed impossible.

The stove had to be lightweight, no larger than a quart thermos, able to burn any kind of fuel and to operate in weather from -60°F to 125°F. Fewer than 60 days after work began, Coleman demonstrated a working prototype. In November 1942, 5,000 of the little stoves went into battle when U.S. forces invaded North Africa. Credit for ramping up production so they could ship out with the troops goes to another Coleman son, Clarence.

The stoves burned for two hours on a cup of fuel taken from a jeep or plane. They were carried across every battlefield in Europe and the Pacific, and they turned up in tents, foxholes and bombers. An article in the Los Angeles Times stated that “many a huddle of soldiers got the warmth to survive and fight another day from a Coleman Stove”. In all, more than a million were produced.

Tapping into America’s Outside Interests

The ability to sense trends and adapt to change, which had always characterised the company, now propelled it into the second half of the century. All the signs said America was moving outdoors, and Coleman moved with it.

The lantern and the camping stove, both category leaders, became anchors for an expanded line of leisure products, beginning with a galvanised steel cooler introduced in 1954. Three years later, Coleman revolutionised the industry by developing a process to make a plastic liner for coolers and jugs.

With a clear focus on developing and marketing products to help people enjoy the outdoors, the company made several strategic acquisitions that allowed it to quickly add tents and sleeping bags to its growing recreation line.

By the time the 1960s drew to a close, the company that began as a one-man lighting utility had become the biggest name in the camping business.

Climbing Mountains and Fording Streams

A 1982 article in Southern Outdoors described Sheldon Coleman Sr. as a “blend of superlative sportsman and masterful businessman”.

By his own calculation, he had paddled some 5,000 miles in his lifetime. He knew as much about traversing different kinds of waterways as anyone, and he won the hearts of canoeists and fishermen alike with a line of Coleman-branded marine products. Made from a revolutionary petrochemical formulation, the RAM-X canoe was nearly indestructible. Unlike a boat with an aluminium hull, the Coleman craft scarcely made a sound if it clipped a rock or grazed a sand bar.

A small camping stove, descended from the GI Pocket Stove, was the first product in a line of lightweight, high-performance backpacking gear. The Peak 1 line grew to include sleeping bags, lanterns, tents, cookware and a pack with a revolutionary plastic frame rather than the traditional welded tubular aluminium. Other products would join the line-up, and another Coleman would join the company. In 1981, Sheldon Coleman Jr. became the third generation to be part of the business, which was turning out 15 million products a year by the end of the decade.

The Coleman company has been on a roll for a hundred years, and the present decade is no exception. It is defined by its heritage, and excited about its future.