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MANUFACTURER
- Bean Bros.
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Leon Leonwood Bean, founder of
the Maine company L.L. Bean, began his
career in Freeport, working as a clerk
in his brother Otho’s shoe store. In
1895, Otho opened a second store in
Freeport, Maine, called Bean Bros. and
hired L.L. to manage it. In 1902, he
moved to W.H. Moody's shoe store at 74
Main Street in Auburn. Soon, with
Moody's permission, Bean began to sell
pants over the counter that he had
bought from his brother's store. The
brothers also had stores in Yarmouth,
Freeport and Saco. Leon worked in the
Auburn and Freeport stores.
By 1904, the store was called
Bean Brothers, and it successfully
operated for almost a decade. In 1911,
L.L.’s passion for the outdoors and
Yankee ingenuity came together with the
birth of the Maine Hunting Shoe and the
L.L. Bean company.
Leon saw immediate success. He
eventually expanded his brochure into
hunting, fishing and camping equipment
catalog mailings and in the 1920's
added clothing and sporting goods to
his product line.
Leon Bean, was an avid baseball fan and offered equipment for sale, such
as bats, gloves, and uniforms. The Bats
were embossed with the Bean Bros. logo,
featuring signature models of Boston
players at that time.
There are only a few
baseball gloves and bats that have surfaced
in the hobby that carry the "Bean Bros"
logo. The two baseball gloves include a
one inch web, and a tunnel web, both
dated to the 1910's - 1920's. Three
baseball bats include Fred Parent and
Benjamin Houser signature models.
Parent lived in Maine his whole life,
and Benjamin Houser went to Maine in
1916 serving as a baseball coach at
Bowdoin College, in Brunswick.
Both played for Boston, Parent, 1901-1907 (Chicago 1908-1911), and Houser,
1910 (Philadelphia), was a first
baseman who played for the Boston
Rustlers in 1911 and the Boston Braves
in 1912.
The third Bean Bros. bat was said to be used by Babe Ruth in an exhibition
game played in Syracuse, N.Y. either in
1921 or 1922. Ruth an avid outdoorsman was a big
fan of the L.L. Bean store, and
evidently bought
a Bean Bros. baseball bat. After
having broken the bat in the Syracuse
game, tossed the bat to a young fan.
The story was featured on the Antique
Roadshow.
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Bean Bros Baseball Bat |
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74 Main Street in
Auburn, Maine Bean Bros.
Store |
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KEYMAN COLLECTIBLES
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