CORPORATIONS: Under the Hat

In the quaint and wonderful business of making hats, an historic event took place last week. The John B. Stetson Co., largest hat dispenser in the world, bought out the Mallory Hat Co., one of the runners-up in the trade and the oldest hatter in the U.S.

The absorption of Mallory, which has been controlled by one family during its 129 years, marked the end of an old and famed company. But Mallory’s quiet history, mostly in the cities of the U.S., is as nothing compared to Stetson’s colorful story.

It began in 1863 when the first John Batterson Stetson, the sickly son of a New Jersey hatter, joined an expedition to Pike’s Peak for his health. On the trip he startled his companions by scraping fur off raw hides, chewing it up, spitting the juice through his teeth to produce crude felt. The broad-brimmed beaver hat that he made with the felt was the butt of all the camp’s jokes. But on the way back Stetson sold it to a St. Louis bullwhacker for $5 in gold, thereupon decided to go into business.

Halos of Thieves & Rustlers. With $10 worth of fur and $90 in cash, Stetson settled in Philadelphia (where headquarters have since remained) to turn out his hats, which he named “The Boss of the Plains.” They had an immediate popularity among Westerners. Even by the ’70s, thieves and rustlers who were shot and dumped in unmarked graves were later identified by the hatbands in their hats: one of Stetson’s first tricks of merchandising was to stamp the retailer’s name in the band in gold.

When thrice-married old John B. died in 1906, he left $7 million. But his two playboy sons who became directors of the company were no chips off the old block. John B. Jr.’s biggest contribution to the company was an impulsive gesture which brought the company fame. On a trip to Arizona in 1901, he tossed his well-worn Stetson into Fossil Creek near the great Natural Bridge. Twenty years later the hat had turned into a 40-lb. hunk of limestone, still shaped in the identifiable form of a Stetson. Manhattan’s Museum of Natural History added the stone to its permanent collection.

Payoff in Gold. Since old John B.’s death the company has been run by conservative hands who rose through the ranks. For years they paid off their employes in gold, as old John B. had, until it became illegal. For a while they also paid off in silver.

The trademark flourished. Every cowboy, fake and real, from Buffalo Bill to the Lone Ranger, wore a Stetson. After the Boer War, famed General R. S. S. Baden-Powell ordered 10,000 Stetsons for his South African police, setting the style for thousands of police and military institutions to follow (including Canada’s Mounties, the Texas Rangers, Fiorello LaGuardia). The Oxford English Dictionary picked up the name Stetson as a synonym for hat.

Under convivial fur-expert James Howell Cummings, who succeeded old John B. as president, Stetson also made a name as an “industrial democracy.” At lavish Christmas parties, employes were given turkeys, gold watches, bonuses totaling up to $400,000 a year. There was a Stetson hospital, Stetson Sunday school, Stetson chorus, Stetson baseball team, Stetson tennis courts and swimming pool, even a Stetson cooperative grocery. But the depression put an end to most of this.

Big, quiet George L. Russell Jr., current up-from-the-ranks president, foresees some trying days ahead. The price of fur, the principal raw material, has almost doubled since the war began. To pay for and operate Mallory, Stetson has to borrow $2,500,000. Nevertheless, convinced that many of the world’s heads are still uncovered, Stetson expects that its new investment will keep it in the black.