L.L. Bean — the outfitter that converted a hardcore mail-order following into a multichannel Maine-branded retail empire — kicked off its 100th year in business with a range of promotional events in 2012.

The company’s birthday was the No. 8 most important Times Record news story of the year, according to an informal poll of readers and editors.

The outdoor-focused retailer began with Leon Leonwood Bean’s Yankee sense of value, and started its 100th birthday celebration this year by unveiling a giant hunting boot that rolled down the highways of the Northeast in April.

A century later, the family-owned retailer that started with Bean’s hunting shoe in 1912 became a business with $1.5 billion in projected sales in its 2011 fiscal year.

Along the way, the company successfully expanded from a catalog retailer to an online retailer and a bricks-and-mortar retailer, and has managed to create a level of customer loyalty that’s envied by others, said Kevin Lane Keller, a branding expert at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University.

“They had an iconic catalog that they had figured out. Now they’re having to look at other ways to sell. That’s part of modern retailing: You have multiple channels,” he said.

The company has recovered lost ground during the recession, but consumer confidence remains a concern as retailers continue to discount merchandise to entice consumers.

Long term, the nation’s sedentary lifestyle is as big a concern as competitors, ranging from outdoors retailers like Cabela’s to catalog merchandisers like Lands’ End.

“For us, the challenge is people spending less time outside and engaged in traditional activities,” said company spokeswoman Carolyn Beem.

While economic growth is slow, consumer behavior is changing rapidly, and it’s a challenge to stay ahead.

“With the Internet maturing as a media channel, it has increased the pace of everything,” said Geoff Wolf, executive vice president at J. Schmid & Associates, a Kansas-based catalog marketing specialist.

L.L.’s company got off to an inauspicious start.

Bean obtained the state’s list of outof staters with hunting licenses, and sent mailings to his prospective customers, touting his hunting boot.

But 90 of the first 100 pairs sold in 1912 were returned after the leather separated; Bean had a satisfaction guarantee, so he returned customers’ money, earning goodwill. He borrowed more money and enlisted a cobbler to make improvements before going out and selling more of them.

Five years later, he opened a store in Freeport.

His golden rule was: “Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings and they will always come back for more.”

And customers did come back for more, showing up at all hours. Bean always answered the doorbell. Thus became the tradition of the flagship store being open 24/7, 365 days a year.

Over the years, Bean added more hunting and fishing items, like trout knives, tents, sleeping bags, skis, snowshoes and a waterproof gun pouch. As grandson Leon Gorman said, “He liked what he sold, and he sold what he liked,” so his catalog carried oddball items like Underwood Deviled Ham, horseshoes, and pipes and pipe tobacco.

His voice came through loud and clear, and people liked it.

“I never figured out why his personality was so magnetic, but it was. When he died in 1967, we were concerned that the company wouldn’t survive his passing,” Gorman said.

The company not only survived but thrived under Gorman, who took over. Unlike his grandfather, Gorman is reserved and soft-spoken, but he gets credit for modernizing the company, formalizing Bean’s “customer first” policies and creating the first computerized customer database.

As part of its 100th anniversary events, L.L. Bean launched the Million Moment Mission earlier this year, inviting customers to share their outdoor moments online, with each one triggering a $1 donation from L.L. Bean to the National Park Foundation’s programs for kids.

The company is still privately held, and that continuity of ownership over the decades has helped the company retain its identity, said Madison Riley, managing director at Kurt Salmon, a consulting firm.

Just being in business for 100 years is a milestone, but to be successful requires companies to walk a tightrope between retaining traditional customers and attracting newer ones.

INFORMATION from The Associated Press was included in this report.