equipment founder fred bear charles piper products compound bow recurve bow longbow website beararchery.com bear archery is a manufacturer and marketer of bows and archery equipment located in gainesville florida owned by escalade sports . 1 contents 1 history 2 references 3 external links 4 further reading history edit the company was founded in 1933 as the bear products company in detroit by fred bear and charles piper . 2 the initial focus was on silk screening and advertising support work for automotive companies . in 1938 fred bear hired nels grumley a woodworker and bowyer and the company expanded to offer hand made bows . 3 fred bear sold the advertising side of the bear products company in 1940 . the archery business was named bear archery . in 1947 the company moved to a new facility in grayling michigan . the grayling plant focused on making and marketing recurve bows and longbows in a growing archery market . bow manufacturing changed from hand made bows to mass production using fiberglass and other modern materials . fred bear sold the company to victor comptometer in 1968 4 but remained the president of bear archery . bear archery was not one of the first compound bow manufacturers but eventually found success with early models like the whitetail hunter . bear archery moved manufacturing from michigan to gainesville florida in 1978 . over the next three decades bear archery changed hands in a series of mergers acquisitions and spin offs from victor comptometer to walter kidde & co 5 hanson plc u.s. industries 6 fenway partners 7 and the north american archery group . in 2003 escalade sports acquired the north american archery group and currently does business as bear archery inc. 8 references edit bear archery inc. dba escalade sports . business.gainesvillechamber.com bear archery turns 80 . arrow trade magazine the bows of bear archery . stickbow.com rick rappe . vintage bows ii . lulu.com . pp. 26 . isbn 978 1 105 72997 3 . ok victor takeover by kidde chicago tribune march 9 1977 companies being spun off by hanson plc ap news archive february 22 1995 fenway partners buying 6 firms from u.s. industries the new york times august 15 1995 indiana company buys bear archery gainesville sun by joe coombs june 26 2003 external links edit official website further reading edit dick lattimer 11 march 2006 . i remember papa bear the untold story of the legendary fred bear including his secrets of hunting . gun digest books . pp. 92 . isbn 0 9721321 3 9 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bear archery & oldid 686735152 categories archerycompanies established in 1933companies based in gainesville floridahidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersarticles created via the article wizard navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 20 october 2015 at 23 59 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view