Alamo Fast Draw

Here is a little history lesson for  some of my fellow gunfighters. It may not help you with your fast draw but it may help you look like one. I hope you enjoy it.

One one crowning symbol of the wild west is the 10 gallon hat and the Stetson is the most famous.  There is no other hat that says westerner quite so well as the Stetson nor is there any other product of the old west with such a long lasting effect.  The only exception to this that I can think of is the Colt single action and if I could get away with it I would wear my single action as much as I wear my 10 gallon hat.  Could you imagine a western movie or book without the Stetson or Colt.  This some author or director ever tried such a thing not only would he go broke that somebody would be looking for an eye strong rope the!

John Batterson Stetson born in orange New Jersey in 1930 was the man behind the Stetson.  John's father Stephen Stetson taught him to trade up at making.  John Stetson was planning on opening his own hat shop when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
He made the decision to move out west and quit the business.  With hopes of improving his condition john move to Saint Joseph Missouri.  His fragile health did not stop him from obtaining work molding bricks.  Hard work paid off and before long he became part owner in the brickyard.  However a flood put the yard out of business and John Stetson setup for something new.  He tried to enlist during the Civil War but was denied due to physical disabilities.  One day a group of men preparing for a trip to find gold in the Colorado Territory invited John to join them and he accepted.

On that trip John learn that's only animal skins together was the norm for making tents for shelter.  The skins were not tanned and would be discarded rather quickly.  This practice and led to much work for the gold hunters and would have to be done for each storm.  It was just such an occasion that led one of the party to make the statement " Too bad there isn't some easier way to make tent cloth " John Stetson commented  " There is " by felting.

The process of felting dates back many centuries.  When clean, the fur mattes together, the scales of the fur interlock.  If you take this mat of fur and repeatedly dip it in hot water and squeeze it, the scales lot tightly forming felt.

John Stetson demonstrated this process to his group.  When he had a blanket of soft felt ready, he began shaping a hat that would protect a person's head from the elements.  One day sometime after he reached the Pikes Peak area a man approached John on horseback and requested to try on John's hat.  Stetson handed over the hat to this stranger and surveyed the picture of the stranger wearing a tall hat on a tall horse.  John Stetson must have liked what he saw.  The horseman liked the hat enough to give Stetson a $5.00 gold piece. That is the story of the first cowboy hat Stetson ever sold.

John return to Philadelphia in 1865 with $100 in his pocket.  The $100 was used to buy  tools and rent a small room to begin making hats.  After making hats of fashion in eastern circles and coming up with little sales he realized he must do something different.  After deciding to sell hats at other locations and after months of thought, it came to him, the man on horseback that had bought his  first hat in the west.

The cattle business after the Civil War was a lucrative business as John well knew.  His idea was to market a hat similar to the basic hat he had sold to the man in the Colorado Territory.  The difference would be a much more stylish but very functional hat made of good quality felt.  He would call this new hat " Boss of the Planes " this term showed his marketing savvy.  Not only would his hat be a symbol of elegance and authority but also of practicality.

Stetson knew of the hat styles the cowboys were wearing such as somberos or variations of.  The Boss of the Planes was a large 4 inch brimmed hat with 4 inch top, a strap for a hat band and of natural color, a modified Mexican Sombrero essentially.  Cattlemen took to this hat that was designed with their needs and wants in mind.  John Stetson was looking to expand his market for the new hat so he secured a list of the hat dealers in the southwest and sent them each a sample of his new hat and included a letter asking for orders.  He went into debt for the materials to make the samples which could have ended him up in the poorhouse.  But within weeks he was starting to receive orders some of which contained cash.

Cowboys earned some where in the neighborhood of $1.00 a day at the time and a hat that cost $10.00, $20.00 and sometimes more was a considerable investment.  But the benefits of the Stetson was well worth it.  A Stetson hat could last a lifetime.  John also came up with a grading system for his hats a 20x meant it was 100% th beaver felt.  There is an old expression to go along with the Stetson, you can put a dozen bullet holes in a Stetson and it won't ravel, they find comment on the durability of a stetson.

I read this in a story someplace and thought it was a fund bit of information although I will not vouch for its accuracy.  Tom Mix a hero from the silent movie era and later.  Order a custom hat from Stetson, the pundits delivery next told the factory rep." You're just in time, I was about to take a shower" next placed the hat on his head and stepped into the shower.  After the Stetson was thoroughly wet,  Mix shaped the new Stetson and told the Rep. " No better way to shape a Stetson "

When John Stetson died in 1906 his hat company was producing two million hats a year.

Stop by the Alamo Fast Draw show and find out more about the sports of Fast Draw, gunfighters, western movies, western movie stars and more.