LONGware Bolt Hangers! Vertical Archaeology has received many inquiries regarding LONGware hanger production and dating. Shown here are three unique designs manufactured by Dick Long in the 1950s and 60s. It’s difficult to date a lot of these items exactly but consensus view dates the thinnest strap style hangers as the earliest with examples being spotted in mid to late 1950s catalogs. Recollections of them being placed on climbs in the early 50s are unconfirmed but seem very credible. Some of the earliest hangers appear to have been sold without the LONGware logo stamped anywhere on the piece. The two later styles are variations on the same basic theme with only a slight difference in the location and angle of the final bend put in the hanger. Our examples came fitted for 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch rivets or bolts.
Dick Long was an early Yosemite pioneer who climbed with many of the greats of American climbing and made forays into, what was for the time, very extreme terrain including the first ascent of the East Buttress of El Capitan in 1953.