byerofmaine

Byer of Maine was founded in 1880 in Bangor, Maine by a Russian immigrant family as a maker of slippers and textile products. In 1925, the company relocated to a century-old frame building near the village center of Orono, Maine. The central portion of our building was originally built as a Catholic church and later served as a movie theater and community center. The site, at the confluence of the Stillwater and Penobscot Rivers, had been the location of a large sawmill in the early 1800’s. The original church structure was renovated, reinforced for industrial use and expanded in traditional New England fashion over the years by the Byer family and today has 33,000 sq. ft. under roof.

After the move to Orono, the company continued its stitching operations and expanded into small metal stampings and the manufacture of wood frame folding cots. WW II and Korea found the company committed to expanded cot production as well as the cut and sew of a wide range of canvas products for the war efforts. In the 1950’s, the company’s focus returned to consumer products with the production of knapsacks and duffels as well as continuing to build cots for the military as well as civilian uses.

With the third generation of the Byer family nearing retirement age, company ownership passed to its current owner, Jay Shields, in 1985. New ownership brought new products with the expansion to new cot models and the introduction of a range of traditional camp furniture.

For a number of years, the company was the only domestic source of wood frame folding cots and camp furniture. Concurrently, the cut & sew activities continued and expanded with the introduction of proprietary designs of totes and other canvas products as well as contract sewing of products ranging from soft luggage to seedling bags for reforestation.

1999 brought the beginning of a transformation when Jay Shields was in Cologne, Germany in support of the European distributor of Byer Camp Furniture who was exhibiting at the Spoga Trade Fair, the outdoor furniture show for Europe. At that show, we found a wonderful line of colorful Brazilian hammocks brought to world markets by Amazonas of Munich. That chance encounter opened our eyes to the opportunities and inevitability of sourcing products offshore. A few hammock samples brought back in a suitcase have expanded to an ever broadening assortment of products for the outdoors. Today, we offer the wonderful hammocks and hanging chairs from Brazil and China; strong aluminum frame cots and stools from China; and Pangean camp furniture from Vietnam. 2006 brought the introduction of birding products from Byer and today we offer an expanding line of bird homes and feeders from China and soon from Thailand.

Byer of Maine is today a very different company sourcing products from far corners of the world. Different as we are, we remain seriously committed to the text that appears under our name…

Add:74 Mill Street/ P.O. Box 100 Orono, Maine 04473 USA
Voice: 1-800-338-0580 / 1-207-866-2171
Fax: 1-207-866-3529
Url:http://www.byerofmaine.com/