Bob Stevens, son of J.C. Stevens, with his Leupold-scoped Winchester Model 95 after a day at the range.

For the next few years the company grew steadily. By the time the Depression was bankrupting businesses, the employee roster at Leupold, Volpel & Co. had vaulted from three to forty. During that harsh decade, not one was laid off. The products designed by Jack Stevens (he would eventually earn seventeen patents) included devices to determine forest fire locations from lookout towers. His hydrologic instruments were eventually installed in ninety-two countries.

It's not clear why Marcus Leupold decided to build rifle scopes. It may be that he drew inspiration from his first deer hunt in eastern Oregon--a trip organized in 1940 by his wife. Marcus enjoyed the outing a great deal, but it may have been a western-Oregon hunt that pushed him into the scope business. When a buck appeared, the story goes, Marcus threw the rifle to his shoulder only to find the lenses had fogged. He fired and missed. "I could make a better scope than this!" he exclaimed.

In 1942, two years after the death of Adam Voelpel, Leupold, Volpel & Co. became Leupold & Stevens Instruments. In 1946 Leupold & Stevens announced its first riflescope. A photograph and description appeared in that October's company newsletter, Hydromike.

Mechanically and optically the Leupold Riflescope is a great advancement in telescope sights. A truly streamlined and novel means of adjusting the reticle for elevation and windage has been incorporated. Adjustments are made by turning graduated sleeves with the fingers--no bulky adjustment turrets and no screwdrivers required...The Riflescope is 21?4 power, with a wide field of view and long eye relief. It weighs less than seven ounces and is 7?8 inch (or 22mm) diameter so that it will fill the greatest variety of mounts.

The adjustment mechanism on the first Leupold was not air-tight, and damp weather caused fogging. So the firm tapped war-time technology. To keep sighting optics clear on Merchant Marine vessels, engineers had replaced the air in each scope with dry nitrogen gas. In 1947 Leupold's Plainsman became the first U.S. scope with internal adjustments and a fog-proof, nitrogen-filled tube.

Jack Slack, pictured here with a fine mule deer, played a crucial role in putting Leupold & Stevens on the sporting optics map in the 1950s and '60s.

Timing could not have been better for Leupold's new business thrust. Scope companies rooted in the 1920s had been crippled by the Depression, and in some parts of the country hunting would never be better. World War II had pulled thousands of young men out of the hunting field, while changes in grazing regimes in the West sent game populations soaring. Ranchers poisoned coyotes and hunted lions, reducing deer predation. Development had yet to choke winter ranges; fire and grazing renewed plant communities favored by big game.

Soldiers came home with cash in their pockets, eager to enter a new prosperity. They enjoyed greater mobility and more leisure time than their parents, and many of them took up hunting. Trophy-conscious hunters replaced traditional lever-action rifles with potent bolt guns that begged optical sights for long shooting.

As post-war prosperity entered the 1960s, L&S needed more manufacturing space. Marcus urged its board of directors to purchase a new factory site west of Portland. The 90,000-square-foot facility would include a shooting tunnel--a priority for Leupold's top salesman, Jack Slack. An avid rifleman who'd joined the firm in 1953, Jack kept in touch with hunters and represented them at board meetings. A colleague recalled that once "he stood up, lifted his heel and swung a scope against it, breaking the reticle. He showed that recoil-proof scopes could still fail if they lacked protection against side impact."

Jack hunted with people like Jack O'Connor, who urged the standardization of a one-inch scope tube. Slack took O'Connor's wisdom, and that of other contemporary gun gurus, to the L&S board room. Leupold Pioneer, Mountaineer and Westerner scopes became prototypes for the famous M8 fixed-power and Vari-X variable scopes that American shooters came to covet.

More Info: Wayne van Zwoll's 1907-2007 Leupold & Stevens...The First Century, from which this column was adapted, is available ($69.99) at www.leupold.com; (800) 538-7653.