In 2015, the Texas Legislature designated the cowboy hat as the official “State Hat of Texas.” This resolution came as no surprise, as the cowboy hat remains a common sight throughout the Lone Star State and has come to uniquely symbolize the American cowboy.
Interestingly, the cowboy hat is not native to Texas and owes its existence to a wealthy New Jersey resident who was falsely diagnosed with a terminal illness.
John Stetson, born in 1830 into a family of Northern hat makers, followed in his father’s footsteps, working in the family hat shop from an early age. However, in his mid-thirties, Stetson was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and his doctor predicted he had only a short time to live. Faced with this prognosis, Stetson decided to explore the American West, a region he had only read about.
West of the Mississippi River, in the days immediately following the Civil War, Stetson, who had spent his life studying headwear, encountered a variety of ineffective hats, most notably the flea-infested coonskin caps.
Contrary to his doctor’s prediction, Stetson experienced an unexpected recovery and moved to Philadelphia. There, he set to work designing a new hat specifically for cowboys, gold diggers, and explorers of the American West. The result was a fur-felt, lightweight, all-weather hat with a curved wide brim and a large crown—the American cowboy hat.
One observer noted, “It kept the sun out of your eyes and off your neck. It was like an umbrella. It gave you a bucket to water your horse and a cup to water yourself. It made a hell of a fan, which you need sometimes for a fire but more often to shunt cows this direction or that.”
Originally branded as the “Boss of the Plains,” Stetson’s hats became an instant success. Following the Civil War, a beef shortage in the East created a demand for cattle, and Texas cowboys found great fortune driving Longhorns from Texas to Kansas City along the Chisholm Trail. Wearing their iconic hats, these cowboys solidified the cowboy hat as a new symbol of Texas and America.