COLEMAN LIGHT AND SOUND LANTERN 360 LUMEN

 

Our story started in Alabama on a cold, winter’s day in 1899. While visiting customers, a young typewriter salesman named William Coffin Coleman spotted an incredibly bright lantern glowing inside a store window. After studying it, he learned it was called the Efficient Lamp. It was powered by pressurised gasoline and had a mantle (instead of a wick) that burned brightly and consistently. So impressed by the lantern’s ingenuity, Coleman quickly agreed to become a salesman for its inventors. However, he soon discovered not everyone shared his enthusiasm for this clever, new product. It seemed the reputation of gas-powered lanterns had taken a hit and people were unwilling to risk investing in another bright idea. 

 

Coleman knew there had to be a solution. While pondering, he recalled an old sales mantra that the first principle is to sell the service your product provides, rather than the product itself. That was it! He’d prove the lanterns’ reliability by offering a lighting rental service that included maintenance and refuelling. The Hydro-Carbon Light Company was born and soon afterwards, Coleman’s lanterns were seen lighting up windows all over town. As the years passed, Coleman improved the design, making it leak-proof and easier to clean. Eventually, he became owner of the lantern’s patent, renamed it the Arc Lamp and moved the company’s head-quarters to Wichita, Kansas.  

 

Providing access to bright, reliable light anywhere was at the core of Coleman’s business and in 1905, another innovative idea led him to the football field of Wichita State University. Pioneering the idea of playing sports under artificial light, Coleman lit the stadium with his lamps strung up on high poles all around the pitch. This was the first time Coleman’s lights were used for outdoor leisure and in the years following that historic match, our product range grew significantly. In 1913, we were renamed the “Coleman Lamp Company”. 

 

The start of WWII was a pivotal moment in our story. All US manufacturing was diverted to support the war effort and Coleman’s production was no exception. We were tasked with designing equipment for the troops, including a reliable, compact stove that could run on any fuel and in any temperature. Our mechanics worked round the clock and created the Model 520 Pocket Stove (later nicknamed the G.I Pocket Stove).  Those war-year innovations cemented our reputation for reliable equipment, paving the way for some of Coleman’s most legendary products.

 

 

In the decades that followed the war, Coleman grew into the outdoor company people know and love today. Holding on to WC Coleman’s sense of resourcefulness, we’ve never stopped innovating. During the 1950s we revolutionised taking food into the great outdoors with the introduction of our portable, plastic-lined cool boxes and in the decades that followed tents, chairs and sleeping bags were added to our range. 

 

All our products share one simple aim, to enable and inspire people to get outside. Over the years, we’ve made this aim a reality through the use and development of numerous technologies and product innovations. From being the first to add taped seams to our tents in the 1990s, to the introduction of fire-retardant fabrics throughout our range in the year 2000. In 2016, we revolutionised sleeping on the campsite with the launch of our game-changing BlackOut Bedroom^® technology. Now found on many of our bestselling models, this patented feature guarantees a dark, temperate sleeping environment at any time of day. 

 

 

Today, Coleman is part of the Newell family of brands and our products have travelled from Wichita to countries all over the world. Keeping W.C. Coleman’s original entrepreneurialism and ingenuity at our core, we continue our mission to make the outdoors a place for everyone.