Leupold Rifle Scope Company

The History of The Leupold Optics Company

For just over a hundred years Leupold has been a proud American company that's family operated. In 1907, Fred Leupold started his company as an optics company in Portland. Leupold was joined by Markus Freidrich and Adam Voelpel, his brothers-in-law, in the small shop located on 5th and Oak. They named it Leupold & Voelpel. Later Marcus, Fred's son, as well as JC Stevens became a part of the business, and then in 1942, when the company was beginning to expand, the company's name was changed to Leupold & Stevens Instruments Company. By this time, Robert, JC's son had joined the company and eventually became the General Manager. Fred always said that customers should always have a "square deal" and the company still operates with that belief, which contributes to their success even now. In 1944, Fred died, and Freidrich took over as the company's president. Another son of Fred's, Norbert, decided then to follow in his brother's and father's footsteps and went on to become the company's Production Manager.

Leupold & Stevens didn't make rifle scopes until 1947, the 2.5x Plainsman Scope being the first. The 2.5x Plainsman Scope was the first rifle scope to be filled with nitrogen rather than air, preventing it from fogging. In fact, several of today's standards in scopes, such as the Leupold VX 3 are based on the innovations and designs of Leupold. In 1957, fifty years after launching the company, Leupold & Stevens were beginning to gain a good reputation for their scopes and had additionally designed an outdoors-men's compass. Due to the fact that scopes were so important to the company's success they decided that the last half of the century would be spent focused on sports optics.

The past four decades have produced a lot of new developments and innovations in rifle scopes with the design of the Duplex- lightweight high power target rifle scope, the Dual Dovetail mounting system and compact rifle scopes. Leuplod & Stevens also began manufacturing binoculars again in the United States with Leupold Golden Ring Binoculars. Then in 1998, after a decade and a half as president, Tom Fruechtel replaced Werner Wildauer and is still company president today. Leupold made the first Compact Roof Prism Waterproof Spotting Rifle scope, the first Lowlight Scope and a cutting edge series of competition rifle scopes in 2002. In 2006 they launched the new RX Rangefinder and the Leupold VX-L scope.

For the past 100 years, Leupold has strongly contributed to the lives of hunters, shooters and outdoor enthusiasts with their sports optics. Following the exact same path that they have been traveling since 1907; listening to consumers' need for a "square deal" would surely make Mr. Leupold incredibly proud!