Patagonia outlet store in Dillon, Montana, was a gamble that paid off

In case your psychological image of Montana contains snow-capped mountain peaks, a small city with a river working by way of it, or huge stretches of ranch land, you’ll discover all of them in Dillon, a small ranching group about 115 miles southwest of Bozeman. What might shock here’s a sprawling Patagonia retailer, one of only six outlets for the clothes firm. The situation is maybe extra becoming than meets the attention: Yvon Chouinard began Patagonia by making pitons for mountain climbing from an outdated harvester blade.

Motorists driving north or south alongside I-15, which connects San Diego to Canada, might not understand that they’re passing by the likes of a 12,000-head cattle ranch owned by Rupert Murdoch and farms that harvest seed potatoes and wheat, amongst different crops. Flanked by the Pioneer and Tobacco Root mountain ranges, the valley has a storied historical past—like a lot of the West—that features a cease by the explorers Lewis and Clark and an 1860s-era gold rush. The extra fashionable story of how a Patagonia retailer ended up right here is sort of as legendary, and all of it started after Chouinard spent a day fly fishing with pals. 

The Patagonia founder has lengthy had a keenness for Dillon, and he makes summertime journeys to fish the Blue Ribbon trout streams within the space. By the late Eighties, Chouinard additionally had a purpose to go to for enterprise as a result of Patagonia started contracting out some work to a neighborhood stitching firm owned by a pal and fellow angler. 

Over some beers after a day of fishing, that very same pal made a daring suggestion: Why not open a retailer in Dillon? Whereas she wasn’t there to witness this trade, Beth Sullivan has advised the story many instances in her long-running tenure as the final supervisor of the Dillon outlet, which opened in November 1990—solely a matter of weeks after Chouinard took the bait. “I at all times say they had been yucking it up over some drinks,” she tells Quick Firm with fun.

Seems, the concept wasn’t a farce. Chouinard knew an outlet was the appropriate selection for this unlikely location as a result of he needed to promote lower-priced objects to individuals who would actually use them, be it for recreation, ranching, or braving the weather. Due to the partnership with the stitching firm, Patagonia had a location to make the shop a actuality in a short time. And, as luck had it, a veteran of the corporate’s outlet enterprise was already planning a transfer to the state. 

That veteran was Sullivan, who started working for Patagonia within the mid-Eighties at its authentic outlet, Real Cheap Sports, in Ventura, California, earlier than swapping coasts to assist open an outlet in Freeport, Maine. She was weeks from shifting to Bozeman to work in what was then the corporate’s phone-and-catalog heart when she obtained a proposal to as an alternative open the Dillon outlet. 

Whereas Sullivan jumped on the alternative, others within the firm had been skeptical. “To start with, folks had been a bit of side-eyed when Yvon was like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to open a retailer,’” Sullivan recollects, including that she, too, was stunned by simply how small Dillon was on her first go to. Its inhabitants has hovered round 4,000 because the Nineteen Nineties, and different locations in Montana, like Butte, Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, and Idaho Falls, are all not less than an hour’s drive away, if no more. 

“The Patagonia Pilgrimage”

The Dillon outlet ultimately turned a vacation spot, inspiring what some Westerners discuss with as “the Patagonia pilgrimage,” and large sale weeks as soon as introduced in crowds of 10,000-plus, although foot visitors has continued to endure post-pandemic, Sullivan says.

Retailers serve an essential function for an organization that’s dedicated to sustainability and has an deliberately small footprint. Patagonia at present has 35 flagship shops in the USA, with a thirty sixth location set to open later this 12 months in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Dillon outlet receives objects that didn’t promote within the prior season at six flagship shops, which signifies that whereas temperatures are at present hovering within the 20s or 30s, buyers will discover the shop stocked with shorts and different warm-weather fare.

The shop can be an establishment of types as a result of it awards grants to native organizations, hosts occasions in Dillon and past, and donates clothes and kit. Staff, a number of of whom have labored there for many years, full “activism” hours locally.

However the Dillon location can be distinctive for the corporate itself. When the shop moved down the block within the 2010s, Patagonia purchased the constructing that now homes the outlet—an outdated grocery retailer—one in all only some retailer areas it owns. And later this 12 months, that can turn into a flagship for Patagonia’s workwear line, Sullivan provides.

Some Montanans are nonetheless bemused that Dillon, of all locations, has a Patagonia outlet, however the retailer’s success says loads about how Chouinard ran the corporate for almost 50 years earlier than he gave up his ownership stake to battle local weather change in 2022. “He at all times has nice concepts,” Sullivan says. “Ultimately, they appear to work.”