Information on Hill Archery Bowyers

and

An Early Howard Hill Arrow

plus Some Other Hill Style Broadheads

Dick:

I visited your web site today for the first time and would like to complement you on a job well done. I have some information that may be of interest too you, take it for what its worth.

I have done quite a bit of research into the chronological order of the Bowyers the made bows for Howard Hill and Howard Hill Archery, my findings were gathered from some of the bowyers them selfs and or from first generation relatives.

1949-1954 Dale Phillips- All the woven glass bows were made between 1952-53 by Dale. Dale was a personal friend of mine and his son Kurt is one of my best friends.

1954-1963 Jim Darling - Jim made mostly recurves for Hill

Bob Stotler - During the same period , Bob making mostly longbows.

Late 50's to early 60's Dan & John Schultz

1958- Howard Hill Productions begins selling products from Shawnee Archery

1960- Howard Hill Productions incorporates as Howard Hill Archery and moves to Sunland, Ca.

1965- Howard moves back to Alabama

1968- Ted & Betty Ekin sell their 1/2 interest in Shawnee archery to Dick & Mayzell Garve,r their partners, and move Howard Hill Archery to Hamilton, Mt.
During this time they hired John Schultz. He built bows for them until Howard passed away in 1975. John made the first few commemorative bows before leaving to start his own business.

1977-1985 Tim Meigs contracts to make bows for Howard Hill Archery from his Carson City, NV shop. Tim made all the remaining commemorative bows. I made the cutter that was used to inlay the medallion into the riser.

1977-1982 Ted Kramer contracts to make Howard Hill bows from his St. Ignatius, MT. shop

1977 Ted & Betty trademark the Howard Hill Signature and name.

1980 Craig starts gluing up bow blanks but does not build complete bows until 1981 and continues to build them today.

Dick there is so much conflicting information about this period that I'm not sure just how accurate some of this information is. As an example, in John Schulzs book "Straight Shooting", he talks about he and his brother going to Howards home "Saticoy" and during the 1960's The state of California forced Howard to sell this place for a new free way.

Then in Craigs book "Howard Hill the man and the Legend" he says 1945 brought many changes to Howards life. He sold his Chandler Boulevard shop and his house on Saticoy St. and moved to his new custom made home in Pacoima, Cal.

On another note, I have a copy of several letters between Hugh Rich and Bob Stotler, in one of them Hugh talks about the arrows Howard took to Africa. They were made by Ben Pearson Archery and there were 10 gross, that's 1440 arrows. Hugh had the job of inspecting all of them for nock straightness, point straightness, shaft straightness and spine accuracy, plus adding a safety glue spot on the leading edge of the fletching. They were then graded #1 #2 and bird arrows and marked with a color crest red, white or blue to represent the three grades.

I saw photo on your site of the early barbed Hill head, I have an arrow made by Howard in 1938 that has a hand made barbed Hill, would you like a photo of it for the site.

Bob Burton, Whispering Wind Arrows.

I've enclosed several photo's, the Hill arrow and point and some pic's of Joe Caldwell broadheads. Joe's shop was just one block from Howard Hill Archery when in Sunland, Ca. Joe made the dies for the Hill Broadhead that are still in use today by Craig. Joe made his own broadhead also, not sure if he sold them to the public or if they were just made for family and friends. I own all of Joe's jigs used to drill and align the pin holes in the ferrule and blade. I will enclose photo's of those also if they are still in my files. I must have deleted the Caldwell jigs, can't find them.
Bob

Dick:
I forgot to tell you, the Hill arrow and point were made by Howard in 1938 for a client in Wisconsin. And an interesting point the head you have on the site is barbed there never was a barbed die, just the sloped shoulder and the sloped shoulder were cut off to make them barbed.

Bob