Dunham’s Sports Brand Guidelines: A 1937 Michigan Bait Shop Turned Midwest Sports Chain

A shop on Northwestern Highway.

Dunham’s Sports began as a bait shop. English Wikipedia says the first store opened in 1937 in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, in the suburbs north-west of Detroit, as Dunham’s Bait & Tackle; SGB Media, in 2016, placed the 1937 founding in Detroit itself. The shop was run by Ron Dunham on Northwestern Highway, west of Telegraph Road, and, the article says, citing a 2014 profile in The Oakland Press, it became known through advertisements in Newsweek and through fishing shows on the radio.

The founder’s surname has outlasted his ownership by many decades. In 1953, according to English Wikipedia, which cites the Detroit Free Press, the store was bought by Robert L. Schmalzried, who moved it to the corner of Northwestern Highway and Orchard Lake Road. From there the business grew into a chain of discount sporting goods shops, keeping the Dunham’s name through each later change of owner.

The chain’s home has stayed in Oakland County, Michigan, throughout. In 1985 The New York Times described Dunham’s Inc. as based in Drayton Plains, a community in Waterford Township; English Wikipedia says the company was headquartered in Waterford Township in 1991; and SGB Media, the sporting goods trade publication, gave its base as Troy, Michigan, in October 2026.

American Can, Primerica and private hands.

In 1985 the chain passed to a corporate owner. In February 1985 The New York Times reported that American Can Co., of Greenwich, Connecticut, had acquired the assets of Dunham’s Inc., which it described as a closely held discount sporting goods and apparel business, for cash and notes. English Wikipedia, citing Billboard, says the chain then had eight stores: five in Metro Detroit, one in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and one each in Anderson and Muncie, Indiana.

That ownership was short. American Can merged into Primerica, and the enlarged company sold Dunham’s in 1989, English Wikipedia says. By 1991 the chain had 49 stores. Today it is privately held: English Wikipedia names its owner as Dunham’s Athleisure Corporation and its chief executive as Jeffrey G. Lynn, and in March 2021 SGB Media quoted David Lynn as president of Dunham’s Sports.

The trade press has tracked the chain’s size. In May 2016 SGB Media quoted Jeff Lynn as chairman and chief executive of Dunham’s Athleisure Corporation, based in Troy, and reported 66 Dunham’s Sports stores in Michigan, 22 in Wisconsin and over 225 across the chain, trading in 20 Midwestern and Southern states; it said 17 new locations had opened since January 2015. The same publication put the chain at 240 stores in 22 states in March 2021, at roughly 260 stores in 25 states, largely in the Midwest, in May 2025, and at over 260 stores in 26 states in October 2026. English Wikipedia lists states from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana to Montana, New Mexico, Alabama and Maryland, grouping them as the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Southwest and the West.

Many of its stores sit in regional malls and shopping plazas, some in units once used by department stores. In July 2020 SGB Media reported that Dunham’s had opened its sixth West Virginia store at the Liberty Square Shopping Center in Hurricane, in a former Elder-Beerman location. In September 2022 the publication wrote that, while Dunham’s operates in major metro areas, its main focus is smaller secondary and tertiary markets with few other places to buy sporting goods. In October 2026 SGB Media reported a new store at Downtowner Plaza in Coshocton, Ohio, the chain’s 27th in that state, with grand-opening events from 23 to 25 October, and said Dunham’s had opened stores that year in Austin, Minnesota; Spindale, North Carolina; and Kalispell, Montana. It described the Coshocton store as having expanded apparel and footwear departments, large camping and water-sports areas and a broad selection of fitness equipment. Describing a larger store at the Westwood Mall in Marquette, Michigan, in March 2021, the same publication listed footwear and apparel, outdoor and water-sports areas, team-sports equipment, a golf department, indoor and outdoor games, go-karts and mini bikes, and workwear.

Signs, sizes and owners.

Sporting-goods chains across the Americas, Asia and Oceania tend to present themselves through a few constant elements: a short name on the shop sign, a single strong colour carried from the storefront to the advertising, and a logo set in heavy or slanted capitals. In the United States, Big 5 Sporting Goods uses white capitals on a blue field and Dunham’s Sports a slanted red wordmark, as their logo files on Wikimedia Commons show. The guides in this group look at chains in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, and describe each sign, logo and colour scheme as the company itself publishes it.

Store formats range from small neighbourhood shops to large units in regional malls. Big 5’s stores averaged about 10,000 square feet in 1997, the Los Angeles Times reported, while Dunham’s has taken mall and plaza units, including former department-store spaces, according to SGB Media. Shop counts in these guides are always given with the date and the source that reported them.

Ownership takes several forms. Some chains have stayed in founding families or passed to private owners; some have been listed on a stock exchange and later taken private, as Big 5 was in October 2025; others sit inside larger retail or department-store groups. Each guide states the owner as a dated source gives it, and says plainly when a business has been sold, merged or closed.

Many chains also sell ranges under their own names alongside branded goods, and publish corporate pages about their founders and owners. Each guide separates what a company says about itself from what independent, dated sources record, and treats the palette shown as an unofficial interpretation rather than an official brand colour.

A slanted red wordmark.

The chain’s range has moved a long way from bait and tackle. English Wikipedia describes it as specialising in athletic equipment, apparel and footwear and in outdoor sports, including camping, boating and fishing, and as carrying a large assortment of name-brand products. In 2016 SGB Media named Under Armour, Nike and adidas among the apparel and footwear brands sold, alongside bicycles and kayaks.

The identity rests on the name. The logo, as shown on Wikimedia Commons, sets “Dunham’s” in a heavy, slanted red wordmark with a tight apostrophe, and the word “SPORTS” beneath it in smaller, widely spaced italic capitals, all on a white ground. The founder’s surname, first used on a bait shop in 1937, is the one constant through a sale in 1953, corporate ownership from 1985 and private ownership since 1989.

For a design guide, Dunham’s Sports shows how a family surname and one strong colour can carry a regional chain from a single shop to a multi-state network. Compare Big 5 Sporting Goods, a western chain that began with five small stores in 1955, and Scheels, another Midwestern sports retailer. For this guide we use a deep red, a slate grey and a pale blush with a slanted sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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