Whatever Happened to Trapper Keepers — and Can You Still Buy Them?
Where would the kids of the ’80s be without the Trapper Keeper?
Though the marvelous invention first arrived in the late 1970s, Mead’s Trapper Keeper is deeply associated with the ’80s and ’90s, thanks to the colorful designs that were totally rad, a vinyl plastic coating that felt great to hold, and that unmistakable sound of the Velcro flap ripping open as you pulled out either your Algebra homework, or reached in for a clean sheet of loose-leaf paper.
Initially, the “Trapper” was a type of folder with vertical pockets, not horizontal. And you kept your Trapper in — you guessed it! — your Trapper Keeper.
Initially designed for children, the Trapper Keeper was a hit amongst high school students and adults (who used it for record and recipe keeping). After debuting it in select markets in the late ’70s, Mead rolled it out nationally in the summer of 1981. And school was never the same.
Though you personally may have not seen a Trapper Keeper since the ’90s, the brand is still going strong; though modern students deal mostly in a digital classroom, there is still sometimes a need for note-taking, pens and paper. Today’s modern Trapper Keepers look a little different than the classic models, and often have a plain zip-up nylon exterior, rather than the fun nylon designs we remember.
But Mead might also be courting nostalgic adults with its line of retro-themed Trapper Keepers, including two official Stranger Things-themed versions (available on Amazon). You can also pick up some styles of Trapper Keeper at stores like Walmart.
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The Trapper Keeper’s origin is a bit controversial. Initially, E. Bryant Crutchfield claimed to be the creator of the Trapper Keeper. Mental Floss profiled Crutchfield in 2013, and the comprehensive article detailed the Trapper Keeper’s creation. But, when Crutchfield died in 2022 at the age of 85, a former Mead employee named Jon Wyant, 84, came forth to claim that he was the creator of the Trapper Keeper.
Wyant was Director of New Product Development at Mead when Crutchfield tasked him with creating a binder to hold folders with vertical pockets. Wyant told Mental Floss that Crutchfield was a “marketing manager.”
“He would explore the market and make recommendations,” said Wyant, “the design of the Trapper Keeper he had almost nothing to do with.”
In the 2013 article, Crutchfield did credit Wyant with coming up with the Trapper Keeper name, but in 2024, Wyant said that Crutchfield took too much credit for the product’s creation.
With one former Mead employee calling it a “chicken and egg” scenario, Mental Floss surmised that “the Trapper Keeper would not exist as we know it today without the efforts of both Jon Wyant and E. Bryant Crutchfield.”
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August 2019
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