Seattle-based entrepreneur and inventor of the modern backpack, Murray McCory, died last month at the age of 80.

Take the school backpack, for example. Its invention can be traced to one man, Murray McCory, who died last month. McCory founded JanSport in 1967 with his future wife (Jan, the company’s namesake).

He started the backpack company in 1967, while still in college, and went on to revolutionize the way students carry books.

Murray McCory, who founded JanSport while a student at UW and whose lightweight backpack, revolutionized school life for millions of students, died Oct. 7 in Seattle.

JanSport backpacks grew out of the heady, creative days of the 1960s and ’70s counterculture in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. McCory, who until the early 1980s had the surname Pletz, was a student ...