Boone & Crockett Member Spotlight—John M. Olin
John Olin was a business titan who understood that if there was no game left to hunt, consumers would have little use for his company’s Winchester firearms, or Western ammunition. He stood at the crossroads of industry and science, using the weight of the Olin Corporation to help fund the future of conservation.
By Steve Wagner
Since its inception, the Boone and Crockett Club has been a bridge between science, conservation, and hunting. After all, without science-based conservation, there would be no hunters—and thus no hunting industry.
In 1887, Theodore Roosevelt’s original cast of Club members included George Bird Grinnell, owner and editor of Forest and Stream, essentially the Wall Street Journal for that era’s sportsmen. Others ran companies deeply vested in the commercial success of hunting, such as leather-goods magnate Bronson Rumsey, and Archibald Rogers, whose freight services buoyed manufacturing supply chains and retail product distribution. Today, the corporate connection continues with Johnny Morris of Bass Pro Shops/Cabela’s, past-Club president Tony Caligiuri of Boyt Harness Co., and CJ Buck of Buck Knives, just to name a few.
Nestled between the Club’s early pioneers and its modern-day CEOs, there was John Olin.
Reviving Winchester
Born in 1892, Olin began his career in 1913 as a 21-year-old chemical engineer for his father’s Western Cartridge Co. Read more
