Original U.S. Indian Wars M1883 Sack Coat / Fatigue Blouse by Browning King & Co. Uniform Department - Rare

Original Item. Only One Available. This is an outstanding Indian Wars private purchase M1883 Sack coat by one of the most prolific tailors in American military history, Browning King & Co. Started in 1822, the firm outfitted military men following the Civil War, receiving countless contracts for military uniforms in the coming years. This article from a 1934-dated newspaper gives a great history of the firm:

To Harvard, Yale and Princeton men, Browning, King & Co. means college clothes. To railroad conductors, bell hops and steamship officers, Browning, King means uniforms. The 112-year-old clothing firm virtually outfitted the gold rush of ’49. John Hazard Browning, descendant of a Rhode Island settler who bought a “dwelling house and two lots of acres . . . for £3 in wampum” had been in the clothing business 27 years when news of gold at Suiter’s Mill burst upon New York. He packed clipper ships with pants and coats as fast as they could be sewed together, sent them around the Horn to be traded for gold nuggets on the Coast.

John Hazard Browning’s sons were not sorry when the Civil War came. They wangled a huge contract for soldiers’ uniforms out of the Federal Government. After Appomattox they might have gone bankrupt had not a man named Henry W. King joined the firm. War had ruined their southern business, so Henry W. King opened a store in Chicago. It made so much money that the Brownings were glad to add his name to their corporate title, open other stores in the West. Browning, King had a chain of haberdasheries while the late James Butler, founder of the first grocery chain, was still a farm hand in Kilkenny.

The Spanish-American War brought Browning, King contracts to outfit the entire Navy. The founder’s youngest son, John Hull Browning, branched out into banking and railroads in New Jersey, was four times a Presidential elector. He died of apoplexy in the Erie Railroad ferry house in 1914, shortly before Browning, King began making khaki for the A. E. F. Another son, Edward Franklin Browning, was the father of Edward West (“Daddy”) Browning, whose carryings-on with “Peaches” Heenan Browning made front page news in 1927. Before Depression Browning, King, whose stock is privately owned, had 31 stores and five Brownings, paid sizeable annual dividends. By last year there were 24 stores and two Brownings but the old firm had fallen upon evil days. Last week Browning, King toppled into bankruptcy.

The sack coat has a great tag on the interior for Browning King & Co. The jacket retains all buttons, but the top button is held in place by a pin and is no longer stitched. The jacket has a left breast pocket and a lower right pocket, both well-lined. This is really an outstanding example, one of the best M1883s we have had.

A great Indian Wars era coat, ready for further research and display.