Old West History

Stetson Hats: The Boss of the Plains Hat

Stetson HatThe Stetson Hat was created by John B. Stetson. During the Civil War in 1862, Mr. Stetson, having no desire to die an untimely death, headed for Colorado to pan for gold long after John Sutter’s fabulous discovery of gold in California. He’d been working as an apprentice milliner but had grown weary of the work. After not finding much gold, Stetson tried his hand at trapping and found it to be a bit more profitable. It would turn out to be the genesis for an idea that would make him rich.

Stetson made himself a large, wide-brimmed hat from beaver pelts sewn together. It was a utlilitarian hat in that it not only provided a large, sombrero-like cover that shaded the entire face, but it doubled as a water bowl (and some say, was often used for hot stew).

The hat became popular with some of the miners and trappers, so after selling a few, he left Colorado for Philadelphia where, with a mere $100, he started making hats in earnest. But, that first year was pretty dismal and he neary went bankrupt since he only managed to sell about a dozen hats.

Old West Novel Down from the Mountain

Suddenly, Stetson’s  hat caught on with the cowboys who spent all their days under blistering hot suns, and with the gold miners who sweated under the hot sun day after day, and he found himself deluged with orders. The hat became known as the “John B.” or as it was popularly called, “The Boss of the Plains,” and his hats became as popular as the Colt revolver. At his death in 1906, the company was selling hats internationally and sales were reported in excess of 2 million hats a year. Beaver top hats became quite the rage in New York City and even in Paris and London and other European cities.

Today, the company pulls in more than $200 million a year in sales.

Below is a video that shows some rare, vintage film of the making of a Stetson hat, circa 1920’s.

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Famous Guns of the Old West

[ReviewAZON asin="0762745088"]
From the Model 1866 .44-40 Chief Joseph famously surrendered to General Miles (now gathering dust in a museum in Fort Benton) to Buffalo Bill’s .50 caliber breechloading needlegun nicknamed Lucretia Borgia, a good portion of the actual guns that were once in the hands of the heroes and villains of the old West are still in existence, scattered around in a dozen different museums across the country. Although there are a host of titles that take advantage of our endless curiosity about western firearms (it’s a cottage industry unto itself), there is no single book that traces the natural history of the individual guns. Famous Firearms follows the life stories of twelve of the actual pistols, rifles, and shotguns that were so instrumental in shaping our western mythology, using them as entrees into the lives of the shootists themselves. The end result is a vivid portrait of twelve famous western characters, paired with the guns they used to make themselves famous and infamous.
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Blood and Thunder – Epic Story of Kit Carson

This excellent book by Hamton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers, is a whopping 557 pages, chock full of historical facts swirling mostly around the life of the legendary, Kit Carson. It is a masterful job. Read the rest of this entry »