Browning is a hunting and archery brand founded in Ogden, Utah, in 1878. It is headquartered in Morgan, Utah.
In 1965 Browning, a gun company run from Morgan, went into the sailboat business. Its own timeline says it bought Newport Boats that year and liquidated the assets in 1976. Three years before the boats, the catalog had added archery equipment, fishing rods, ski poles and pole vaulting poles. Anyone whose garage holds gear for four hobbies will recognize the pattern.
John Moses Browning was born in Ogden in 1855 and learned the trade in his father's gun shop. In 1878 he and his brother Matthew formed their company in Ogden, and in 1879 he received the first of his 128 firearm patents, for a single shot rifle. A Winchester vice president came to Ogden in 1885 and paid $8,000 for the production rights. Winchester later passed on his autoloading shotgun, and Belgium's Fabrique Nationale took it in 1902.
That Belgian connection now runs the other way. FN bought Browning in 1977, and the guns are made by FN and licensed makers such as Miroku, not in Utah. The headquarters moved to Morgan in 1964, a short drive from Ogden, where at 13 John Browning assembled a rifle out of spare parts as a birthday present for his younger brother.
In 1972, according to the company's timeline, Browning Industries became Browning Arms Company, and Browning Arms Company became Browning.
