Chums is a pack and bag brand founded in Hurricane, Utah, in 1983. It is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In the early 1980s the Colorado River kept taking eyeglasses off the faces of Mike Taggett's clients, and his own went in too. Taggett, a dory guide, sewed a cotton strap to hold them on, and clients started asking to buy one. After the 1983 season he moved from Moab to Hurricane and started Chums in the back room of a dory warehouse, for $30 a month.
He sewed about 50 straps a week and named the company after Chumley, a friend's dog that St. George News calls a "thick-headed, goofy lab." Then Swatch ordered 10,000, and the account grew to 290,000 straps. Taggett sold his interest in 2002 to Charles Ferries, whose family owns Chums, with sales handled from Ketchum, Idaho. A 2007 merger with Chisco opened the Salt Lake City office, which the county historical society lists as headquarters.
The Hurricane factory sits at an entrance to Zion National Park and has turned out more than 60 million units since 1983. Visit Sun Valley reported in 2023 that about 70 percent of Chums sales volume is made in Hurricane. Retainers are still made in Hurricane, where a river guide once paid $30 a month for a back room.
The bird on the Chums logo is a red-footed booby, a plunge-diving seabird, not the penguin many people take it for.
A Utah classic. There's a Chums on every pair of my sunglasses.
Alex
