Family Camping Tents – the History of Eureka Tents
November 22, 2009 by Dunkin
Though the exact year is unknown, Eureka’s long history begins prior to 1895 in Binghamton, New York, where the company still resides today. Then known as the Eureka Tent & Awning Company, its first wares were canvas products–most notably, Conestoga wagon covers and horse blankets for nineteenth century American frontiersmen–as well as American flags, store awnings, and family camping tents.
The company increased production of its custom canvas products locally throughout the 1930s and during the 1940 and even fabricated and erected the IBM “tent cities” just outside Binghamton. The seven acres of tents housed thousands of IBM salesmen during the company’s annual stockholders meeting, which had since outgrown its previous locale. In the 1940s, with the advent of World War II and the increased demand for hospital ward tents, Eureka expanded operations and began shipping tents worldwide.
In 1960, Eureka’s new and innovative Draw-Tite tent, with its practical, free standing external frame, was used in a Himalayan Expedition to Nepal by world renowned Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person documented to summit Mt. Everest only six years earlier.
In 1963, Eureka made history during its own Mt. Everest ascent, with more than 60 of its tents sheltering participants from fierce 60+ mph winds and temperatures reaching below -20°F during the first all American Mt. Everest Expedition.
For backpackers and families, Eureka introduced its legendary Timberline tent in the 1970s. Truly the first StormShield design, this completely self-supporting and lightweight backpacking tent became one of the most popular tents the entire industry with sales reaching over 1 million by its ten year anniversary.
Eureka tents have also traveled as part of several historic expeditions, including the American Women’s Himalayan Expedition to Annapurna I in 1978 and the first Mt. Everest ascents by a Canadian and American woman in 1986 and 1988.
In recent history, tents specially designed and donated by Eureka sheltered Eric Simonson and his team on two historic research expeditions to Mount Everest, this time in a quest for truth regarding the 1924 attempted summit of early English explorers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. During the 1999 expedition, the team made history finding the remains of George Mallory, but the complete mystery remained unsolved. Returning in 2001 to search for more clues, the team found amazing historical artifacts which are now on display at the Smithsonian.
You can find out more about popular family camping tents over at familycampingtents.net.
In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off to become the first men to climb Mount Everest. Among the gear they packed was a Vest Pocket Kodak camera. They disappeared. Today, a search for their camera could rewrite history. It was nearly thirty years later, in 1954, that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully scaled Everest and won history’s distinction as the first mountaineers to do so. But Mallory and Irvine’s fate remained a mystery, and the possibility that they reached the summit endured. Mallory’s body was found in 1999 but didn’t provide any conclusive answers on the fate of his expedition. Now, Everest historian Tom Holzel believes he has pinpointed the location of Andrew Irvine’s body, showing up as an “oblong blob” on high-resolution photographs of the mountain. Recovering Irvine’s body might mean recovering his Kodak camera, as well as the film that could fill in the blanks on their historic climb. Holzel plans to launch an expedition to investigate the…
LoL Meat for the beast + fur for clothing (in necessity for when I trek in Nepal) = Win/Win *See, I need your statistical skills!
You state that our existence is limited to what we know. Well there's imagination. It's becoming more and more important in the modern age. It has always been the causal factor in our progression (inventions). But in a totally rational sense, I agree with you.
Rod, your thoughtful post reminds that when we engage fresh expressions it makes us “do theology” because we have to come to grips with what it actually means to live our faith in the context of life – in the issues of self-defence and how we treat our bodies. I am reminded of Sir Edmund Hillary's comment that it is not the mountain that we conquer but ourselves, likewise martial arts makes us confront much about our selves, what it means to be human and how we deal with violence and self-control and what it means to follow Christ in a challenging world.