John B Stetson

Old West icons

The Boss of the Plains

Kansas can technically claim the cowboy hat because it was in Kansas territory in 1858 that John B. Stetson made a hat, according to Jim Hoy, director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State University.

Stetson was in the gold fields of Colorado — then considered Kansas territory — when he made the wide-brim hat with a waterproof lining and 6-inch crown to protect his head and neck from the elements.

Nicknamed the "Boss of the Plains," the hat protected cowboys from sun and rain, could be used as a water bucket for a horse, a pillow at night and something to shoo the livestock with.

The Boot

"The story is a cowboy had been in Kansas City and stopped at Olathe and asked for a special kind of boot," Hoy said. "Instead of the broad, round toe of the military boot, he wanted a pointed toe and a higher slanted heel."

Bootmaker Charles Hyer fitted him with the Olathe Cow Boy Boot. The pointed toe was designed to slide easily into stirrups. The high shafts protected the legs from brush and scrub.

Lee Jeans

Lee Jeans, the brand started more than a century ago by Salina entrepreneur Henry David Lee, is still a giant in the denim industry.

His intent was to manufacturer work clothes for men. He founded the company and opened his first garment factory in 1889 in Salina.

Lee was among dozens of manufacturers who capitalized on the jeans concept made popular by Levi Strauss & Co. Lee was the first company to make zip-fly jeans, in 1926.

The Marlboro Man

Wayne Dunafon became an American icon through his modeling appearances in Marlboro cigarette advertisements.

Dunafon was born June 15, 1919, in Yuma, Colo. He moved to Russell, Kansas, at age 5 with his parents, attended high school there and worked for several years on ranches in Colorado.

He had a competitive rodeo career, which led him to modeling.

Dunafon appeared in advertisements for Lee Rider jeans, Firestone tires and Chevrolet pickups.

He was the "Marlboro Man" from 1964 to 1978.

The cowgirl

Her name is Willie Mathews and in Caldwell in 1888 she became what historians now believe was the first cowgirl.

She hired on with Samuel Dunn Houston of Clayton, New Mexico during the summer of 1888 to drive cattle to Montana.

In Hoy's book, "Cowboys and Kansas" he writes of how Mathews disguised herself as a man before hiring on with Houston.

My Cattle World: The Stetson

Durable. Practical. Universally Recognized. The Stetson hat is all of these things and more, including being a necessary part of any cattleman's wardrobe. While Stetson is a brand name, just like all tissues are called Kleenex (whether they are or not), Stetson refers to any hat made in the western style. Also called Cowboy Hats, Stetsons were the brain child of one John B. Stetson, who set up the John B. Stetson Hat Company in Garland, Texas in 1865. The cowboy hat is a piece of headwear designed to take some falls. Most are constructed of beaver felt, wool, or straw, and brim width, crown height, and shaping can vary from region to region and occupation to occupation. As the cowboy, range riding lifestyle has slowly died out; Stetsons have become more of a fashion accessory than a necessity. It used to be the wide brim kept the sun off your neck and the rain out of your face, and the crown was high enough to keep you cool in the summer and could be pulled down low in the winter. The shaping of the brim differed so greatly between cattlemen, outfits, ranches and regions that there is no one "right" style of brim, but personal preference must prevail in selecting the one right for you. I have two stetsons that are for fashionable dress only, not to be worn daily, but with good reason. As my head is a rather large and irregular shape (7 and 7/8 hat size, to be exact, and rather egg shaped from frotn to back), all the hats I wear need to be custom made and shaped for my extraordinary cranium. This comes at a cost, just like anything else that is still hand made today. I prefer my hats to be very sharp in their shape, bent almost at a right angle over the temples. I think it gives them a cleaner, more modern look than the older styled, rounded bend hat brims. Hat quality is a tricky matter. In decades past, hats were given a score based on the quantity of high quality beaver fur they contained, relative to other furs like rabbit, hare, and wool. For example, a hat that had a score of one X had substantially less beaver than a hat with a score of three (XXX). The hat with more beaver is also a lot more money than the one X hat. Nowadays, however, each manufacturer has their own way of scoring their hats, and there is no universal industry standard. Even some straw hats have X scores. My dad bought a hat from a custom hatter a few years ago which was 100X, or pure beaver felt. This hat cost well over $600.

John B. Stetson ...

The Oscar Wilde collection of John B. Stetson, Jr

A little journey to the home of John B. Stetson

Stetson hats and the John B. Stetson Hat Company, 1865-1970

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