Old Town Canoe facts for kids
The Old Town Canoe Company is a famous maker of canoes located in Old Town, Maine. It started in 1898 in buildings that were first used for a shoe business. The company officially became a business in 1901. Old Town first became known for making canoes out of wood covered with canvas. Later, in the second half of the 1900s, they started using newer materials to stay competitive. Their factory was built right next to the Penobscot River.
Old Town is the biggest and most well-known canoe maker in the United States. It was once the top manufacturer in the world. However, after World War II, other companies like Grumman started using aluminum, which put pressure on Old Town. To keep up, Old Town began using fiberglass and plastic in the 1960s. Today, Old Town also makes kayaks.
How Old Town Canoes Started
The very first canoe built by Old Town Canoe was made in 1898. It was built behind the Gray family's hardware store in Old Town, Maine. Unlike other early canoe businesses, the Gray family weren't canoe builders themselves. Instead, they were smart business people who hired others to design and build their canoes. The Old Town factory on Middle Street was bought on October 23, 1901, by brothers Herbert and George Gray, along with George Richardson. It stayed a family-run business until 1974.
Canvas-covered canoes first appeared in Maine. Early canoe makers like E.H. Gerrish and C.B. Thatcher from Bangor, B.N. Morris from Veazie, and G.E. Carleton and E.M. White from Old Town, Maine were pioneers. The Carleton Canoe Company in Old Town made batteaux (flat-bottomed boats) and bark canoes in the 1870s. They were one of the few who switched to making canvas canoes, bringing their boat-building skills to this new style. When Old Town Canoe began, there were several smaller companies in Old Town already making canvas-covered canoes. Old Town Canoe later bought out both the Carleton and White canoe companies.
In 1910, Old Town bought the Carleton Boat and Canoe Company. When the Carleton factory burned down on May 17, 1911, all their canoe building was moved to the Old Town Canoe factory. Old Town continued to print Carleton catalogs and sell Carleton canoes until the early 1940s. This allowed them to sell more canoes under two different names.
In 1917, Old Town started making canoes for fishing. They introduced a model with a flat back (called a square-sterned model) that was perfect for the new "detachable motors" (outboard motors) that were becoming popular. By 1923, Old Town became the first company to sell Johnson outboard motors.
In the early 1970s, the company started using a new material called Royalex for their canoes. Old Town called this material "Oltonar." This new plastic material helped them compete with canoe makers who used aluminum and fiberglass. These newer materials had almost put many of the handcrafted wood and canvas builders out of business.
In 1974, the company was sold to S.C. Johnson. Later, in 1984, Old Town bought White Canoe, a company named after its founder E. M. White, which had started in 1889.
Old Town was then bought by Johnson Outdoors in 2004. The company stayed in Maine thanks to a large loan and grant. As part of Johnson Outdoors' plan to make things more efficient, paddle manufacturing was also moved to the Old Town factory. This added 48 jobs to the Old Town facility.
The company began making kayaks in 1995. By the year 2000, Old Town was actually making more kayaks than canoes!
The original factory buildings were left empty after the company moved out. These old buildings had asbestos, which made them hard to sell. City officials decided it would cost too much to fix them up, so they chose to tear them down. The city received a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help with the demolition. The demolition began in March 2014.
Even though the main factory closed, Old Town’s famous wood and canvas canoes are still made. They are now built by Island Falls Canoe, owned by Jerry Stelmok, in Atkinson, Maine.
Most of the original records for Old Town's canoes and boats built before 1976 still exist. You can find information about canoes with serial numbers 210,999 or less by contacting the Old Town company or Wooden Canoe Heritage Association volunteers online. The serial number is usually found on the top part of the stem (the end piece) on the floor of the canoe at each end. These records show details about how each canoe was built, including when each part was finished, when it was shipped, and where it went.
Famous Old Town Canoes
Some Old Town canoes have become famous for different reasons:
- Seven 16-foot Guide Model Old Town canoes were used in the movie Deliverance.
- The canoe that journalist Eric Sevareid and his friend Walter Port used for their 2,250-mile adventure, described in Sevareid's book Canoeing with the Cree, was an Old Town canoe.
- In 1935, environmentalist Sigurd F. Olson bought several Old Town Yankee Model canoes for his business, Border Lakes Outfitters, in Winton, Minnesota.
- The first Chief of the United States Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, received Old Town canoe number 72176 in September 1922. It was a 15-foot Fifty Pound Model canoe.
Images for kids
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A special plate on an Old Town canoe, showing its history.
