Or Not
Today: Did cowboy wear cowboy hats?
Cowboys are a symbol of the American Wild West, but there are some tales about them that aren’t true. They rarely fought Indians, they were more likely to die from falling off a horse than in a gunfight, and they didn’t wear those tall, wide-brimmed cowboy hats you see in Westerns.
The iconic Stetson came onto the market in 1865, and it wasn’t popular until the end of the 19th century. A cowboy’s preferred choice of hat? The derby—also known as the bowler. Photos of the Wild Bunch from 1892 and 1900 clearly show the gang—Harry A. Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan), Robert Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy), Harvey Logan (Kid Curry), and Will Carver—donning derby hats.
Left to right: Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James.
Famous gunslinger and gambler Bat Masterson also favored the derby. The classic photo of American West gunfighter Billy the Kid depicts the outlaw wearing what resembles a top hat. Wild Bill Hickok was photographed in a flat, pancake hat. An 1882 photo of Jesse James shows the outlaw in a low-crowned cap with an upturned brim.
Men commonly wore hats on the American frontier, and derby hats were functional for various occasions. Most photographs from that time feature men wearing them and one of the reasons they were popular is because they stayed on in windy conditions.
Frontiersman typically wore hats related to their employment, and they were commonly made of beaver fur-felt and were natural in color. In addition to the derby, men wore flat wool caps, Mexican sombreros, or old Civil War hats (such as the kepi).
As for the ten-gallon hat, it would have been impractical, even if it was impressive to 20th-century moviegoers. Famous lawmen such as Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp wore low-crowned hats because giant cowboy hats would have made them easy targets for adversaries.
The ten-gallon hat got its name from the Spanish word “Galón,” not because it could hold 10 gallons of water. Galón means braid, and many Spanish hats in era had braids on them. One with 10 braids was called a Ten-Galón hat.
The original Stetson was dubbed “The Boss of the Plains,” and it didn’t resemble what we think of as a cowboy hat today. It featured a high crown and wide brim and looked a bit like an Amish hat. It was waterproof and shielded the wearer from elements such as the sun and rain. The hat’s design, which didn’t have a crease on the open crown, stayed the same for several years.
John Stetson’s classic cowboy hat was possibly inspired by the Spanish-derived hats he encountered after he moved to the West. He created the iconic headwear, which features a crease in the middle of a high crown with a dent on each side, allowing the wearer to remove it by the crown instead of the brim.
Legend is that he met a cowboy on the road, who was so impressed by the hat that he gave Stetson $5 for it (a rather large amount at that time). The rest is history. By the 1870s, cowboys took to customizing their hats, and in 1872, Montgomery Ward Catalog sold hats that allowed men to shape the crowns and brim to suit their preferences.
By Noelle Talmon, contributor for Ripleys.com
You have selected carefully the pictures to prove your point. Not an adequate selection. The addition of lacquer to the the hat building process has made shapes possible today
Your picture of the wild bunch Butch Cassidy’s outfit was taken in a photography shop dressed up for the picture. Hat fashions changed in the old west just as they do today. Boss of the Plains was the hat of choice in north west, broader brims were more popular in the south west, varying by region. Yes Bat Masterson wore a derby but he lived in town, and who knows where Jesse James got that thing.
None of those people you mention except Billy the Kid (briefly) was a cowboy. The trade of cowpuncher didn’t really exist until big cattle ranches sprung up in the 1870s. Wide-brimmed hats were common among actual working cowboys, and there is plenty of photographic evidence of that fact. That’s why such hats became known as — that’s right — “cowboy hats.”
Also most cowboys in that period were Black, Native American and of Hispanic descent… Not fancy White men in three piece suits…
My gg grandfather, great grandfather and grandfather were all Anglo and cow men in south Texas. My gg grandfather and great grandfather drove cattle up the trail to Kansas. My gg grandfather did have several black and Mexican cowhands that worked for him.
carefully chosen pics…Boss of the Plains was very popular and the typical Sombreo hat..shape was very common.
I bent my bill upwards to be different and odd not to look like most
Whoever wrote this was wrong. It varied from region to region. Most hats bought had wide brims and tall open crowns and were shaped from use. Stetson dint even shape their hats until way later they were just the boss of the plains. If you don’t believe me watch Arizona ghost riders on YouTube.
My Texan cowboy relatives did wear cowboy hats. Many wore Stetsons. Send me an email and a send you a picture pre 1860 of my great great great grandfather in a hat and on his horse. He owned a farm and went sadly into Civil War to die in POW camp in Chicago, Illinois.
Hi —
I’d love to see the photo of your gg grandfather and his hat. (Researching for a film.)
email: carowood29@gmail.com
Thanks in advance and happy holidays…
Caro
Wide brimmed hats were popular for the simple reason that they kept off the sun, just like a sombrero. Cowboys curled up the brims to keep them from flopping into their faces. Not a good look for town. In town they wore a new flat brimmed hat or a stylish derby, and got their picture taken, but on the range they put on their old floppy sombrero with the curled up or pinned back brim. As cowboys became media celebrities either in pulps, radio, movies or TV, the real cowboys took on the look that they were portrayed as wearing on screen. It is just like gangsters that learn to talk as they are depicted in the movies. Art elaborates reality, then reality apes art.