HATS OK!
John saying goodnight wearing a top-quality hat
HATS OK!
What is it about cowboy hats – they just seem to melt on to their owners’ heads and assume their identity. The more individual the cowboy or cowgirl the more individual is the hat. Hats tell the character of their owners and vice versa, a sacred bond between the two, formed over time, joined at the forehead, unless a branch comes along. Cowboy hats are the most personalized of all western apparel.
Hats are much more than what looks good, a show for the urban cowboy. They are practical and invaluable, and not only western hats. American easterners who headed west in the early 1800’s and punched the first cattle wore whatever head gear they owned including bowler hats and ex-soldier hats. Mongol horsemen wore a wide brimmed hat back in the 1300’s. In the early 1800’s cowboy hats had not been invented yet, but the Spanish/Mexican vaqueros wore a flat crowned, wide brimmed hat that is generally considered the precursor to the modern-day cowboy hat. These Spanish/Mexican hats were often sized around the crown with a Spanish measurement called the galloon, and if it was 30 galloons around the crown it was a 30 galloon hat, the spin off being later day cowboys who may call a hat a ‘ten gallon’ hat, which had nothing to do with the amount of water it could hold, which might be a gallon for someone with a swollen head. It is interesting to note that the common use of the term ‘cowboy’ did not catch on until the 1900’s. In the eighteen hundreds you preferred to be called a ‘hand’ if you punched cows, a term already in use by the vaqueros, a ‘top hand’ if you were exceptional, and a ‘cattleman’ as opposed to a rancher if you owned cattle.
John Stetson is generally credited with the establishment of the modern-day cowboy hat. He may have had something to do with coining the term ‘ten gallon’ hat as his early advertising pictured cowboys watering horses from their upturned reliable Stetson’s back in 1865. Mr. Stetson was an easterner from Philadelphia who took a western holiday and while on his trip demonstrated to his companions how to make felt from beaver hair, and crude wide brimmed hats from his felt. He arrived back home determined to make a quality western hat and the rest is history. But even those first ‘cowboy’ hats varied in quality, his hats were selling from $5.00 to $30.00.
Mr. Stetson did not invent the act of using pressed beaver felt for hat making. Beaver top hats were the fashion in Europe in the 1700’s and the quest for beaver fueled and fired the fur trade that settled the west. From early times fur bundles were marked with an X to denote their quality, 10 X being high quality. Mr. Stetson carried on the tradition with his best pure beaver quality hats having the larger number of X’s. Rabbit and rabbit/beaver
blends are considered of a less quality than pure beaver and this is for good reason. Pure beaver has natural barbs that rabbit hairs do not (rabbit hairs are artificially given split ends to simulate barbs). These barbs unite hairs together to make the pressed beaver felt 6 times stronger than rabbit felt, more resilient, more waterproof, finer, and because of these qualities it can be more durable and weatherproof yet much thinner and lighter. On the bottom end of the spectrum is wool felt hats which are heavier and soak up water like a thirsty horse.
My history with cowboy hats is less than honorable as in my early years I habitually reached for the cheapest thing on the shelf that looked good and seemed to work ok. This cheapo habit did not occur with hiking boots, optics, and now, I guess, cowboy hats, as I have learned the quality and performance of these items is critical and quality just outlasts the cheap products tenfold.
I remember back in about 1975 I drove through Burns Lake B.C. enroute to a fishing trip. I stopped at a SAAN type store and discovered a very decent looking wool felt cowboy hat that looked surprisingly good and appeared very functional, and it was. I wore it for a couple of years until it just sort of melted off my head. But here is the thing, this hat cost 6.45, no kidding. Now how in the world could they pay for the raw material, get a worker to make it, make a company profit, ship it, mark up the store profit, and sell it for six bucks and change. Unbelievable. It was a conversation piece around the campfire for a couple of years. A few years back I forgot my regular cowboy hat and drove out to a wilderness country. I managed to pick up a leather cowboy hat at a last chance outpost and felt I had had no choice but to buy this leather tank. It was so heavy I got to leaning my head against a tree once in a while just to take the weight off.
Now I am told that even the wildest and rangiest of remote cowboys will spend their hard-earned dollars on a $500.00 pure beaver hat because they simply last longer, fit better, and are much lighter than a $100.00 beaver/ rabbit blend hat. It is not uncommon to find top end hats selling for over $1000.00. Aside from a wealth of information provided by Vern Elliot of Vernon’s Cowboys Choice, he explained that high end hats have hours of labor involved in the finishing, literally several hours or more, spent shaping and sanding to get the feel and weight just right. I asked Vern if I should feel bad if I poke a couple of holes in a $1000.00 hat for my tie string, to keep the hat from blowing off my head in those high, howling mountain passes. He said there won’t be a need to poke holes in a top end hat because it won’t blow off my head or off the heads of his top hand clients when storms blow up on the Chilcotin – they simply fit that well. Please, go ahead and spend a thousand and let me know if that is so.
Quality reflects on hat care as well. Because beaver resists water so well it keeps its shape longer, possibly years longer, and it also makes them less likely to stain. I am told a horse manure stain can simply be allowed to dry and brushed off, or maybe a bit of non-scented, non-dye, simple degreaser. Hair shampoo works well, or a bit of light sanding. I wanted to ask why a person’s hat, or head would be down there with the horse manure to get stained in the first place, did the wind blow it off? I guess it could have fallen off while the rider was being bucked around. Maybe the horse spooked. Maybe the cowboy was inebriated and fell. Maybe if you buy a $1000.00 hat and fall off you have less chance of losing that hat.
And speaking of money, you generally get the quality of hat you pay for. However, the notion of judging a hat by the X’s has lost its standard, hat companies using the X notion pretty well any way they see fitting. I owned two older well used and abused and retired Stetson beaver felt hats that did tell the true story when they said 7X beaver. It was amazing how Vern made them new again. A testament to the hatter and testament to the quality of the hat. John Stetson knew that. In 1898 one of his hats went down in Havana Harbor with the battleship the U.S.S. Maine. Twelve years later, in 1912, that hat was recovered, twelve years of sitting in sea water, sludge and slime, and it was renovated, as new, apparently.
Now the important stuff. Hats are practical. You can fan a fire, get someone’s attention from a distance, shoo away flies, keep off the rain and out the weather, and most important, it moderates your head and body temperature change in a harsh and changing outdoor climate. And I cannot count the times, dozens, probably hundreds, when I ducked at the last moment and my hat took a branch or a stick that was about to abuse my face. You can even call horses in your light-colored hat. Take the salt block out of the field or paddock for a few days then walk into the field daily with a light-colored salt chunk and let your horses have a lick. In the coming days simply stand and wave the salt chunk and they will come running for the treat. Now, you can walk into the field, or a wilderness meadow, hold up your light-colored hat, and they will come running, all the way into camp.
Some old timers, and some young timers too, never seem to be without their cowboy hats. You would not recognize the person without their hat. I was that way once, got so used to my hat from June till November that I could never remember to take it off. Toward the end of the trail season one year, I began to get head aches. They got so bad that at the end of that final trail ride I went straight to the Doctors office, and of course I forgot to take off my hat. Sitting in the office the Doctor said. “Take off your hat.” I quickly snatched it from my head. The doctor gasped like he’d been zapped by a cattle prod, scared me silly as I did not know why.
‘What’s the matter?” I croaked.
He quickly grabbed a mirror off the shelf and gave me a look. There, right on top of my head, sat a big toad!
“My Gawd,” the Doctor said, “how long have you had that?”
“I’ve had this wart on my rear end for three months,” the toad said.
Wool felt hats may keep your head warm for a while but that’s about it. Your cowboy hat serves many purposes including shedding rain, modifying body temperature and protecting your face and eyes. Beaver felt and beaver/rabbit felt only please! Thin, light, durable, keeps shape, sheds water, etc. etc.
Straw cowboy hats, even quality ones, are great for good weather, great for shade and a pleasure to wear, but not intended for mountain systems that move in on a whim.
Oilskin outback hats are them ticket for many wilderness riders. They really do it all, and you can crunch them and stick’em back on anytime, although they often look worse for wear after a 2-week journey - same as the person wearing it.
