Leupold Rifle Scope Company
A History of The Leupold Optics Company
For a hundred years now The Leupold Rifle Scope Company has been a proud American company that is family operated. In 1907, Fred Leupold initially began the business as an optics company in Portland. Later, Leupold was joined by his brothers-in-law, Adam Voelpel and Markus Freidrich, in that one man shop on 5th and Oak Street referred to as Leupold & Voelpel. Sometime later Marcus, Fred's son, as well as JC Stevens came to be part of the company, and then in 1942, as the company began to expand, the name of the company was changed to Leupold & Stevens Instruments Company. At this time, JC's son Robert had joined the company and would go on to become the General Manager. Fred always said that customers should always have a "square deal" and the company continues to operate with this belief, which certainly contributing to their continued success. In 1944, Fred died, and Freidrich then became president of the company. Another son of Fred's, Norbert, followed in his brother's and his father's path and went on the become the Production Manager of the company.
Leupold & Stevens did not start manufacturing rifle scopes until 1947, with the very first one being the 2.5x Plainsman Scope. It was the first scope to be filled with nitrogen rather than air, which stopped it from fogging. Actually, a lot of today's standards in rifle scopes, including the Leupold VXIII are based on the things that Leupold has come up with. In 1957, half a century after launching the company, Leupold & Stevens started to gain respect for their scopes and had additionally produced a compass for outdoors-men. Since rifle scopes were extremely beneficial to the company's success it was decided that the remaining half of the century would be spent focusing on sports optics.
The past forty years have brought numerous new innovations in rifle scopes with the design of compact scopes, the Dual Dovetail mount system and the Duplex- lightweight high power target rifle scope. Leuplod & Stevens also brought the production of binoculars back to America with the Leupold Golden Ring Binoculars. Then in 1998, after a decade and a half as the company's president, Tom Fruechtel replaced Werner Wildauer and is still the president of the company today. Leupold crafted the first Compact Roof Prism Waterproof Spotting Scope, the first Lowlight Scope and a new series of competition rifle scopes in 2002. In 2006 they invented the new RX Rangefinder and the Leupold VXL rifle scope.
During the past 100 years, Leupold has contributed to the lives of hunters, shooters and outdoors people with their rifle scopes. Continuing on the exact same road they have been on since 1907; really listening to consumers' need for a "square deal" certainly would make Fred Leupold incredibly proud!
