The Boss of the Plains was a lightweight all-weather

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

designed in 1865 by

John B. Stetson John Batterson Stetson (May 5, 1830 – February 18, 1906) was an American hatter, hat manufacturer, and in the 1860s, the inventor of the cowboy hat. He founded the John B. Stetson Company as a manufacturer of headwear. The company's hats ...

for the demands of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. It was intended to be durable, waterproof and elegant. This design and the term " Stetson" eventually became all-but-interchangeable with what later became known as the

cowboy hat The cowboy hat is a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat best known as the defining piece of attire for the North American cowboy. Today it is worn by many people, and is particularly associated with ranch workers in the western and southern Unit ...

Design

The Boss was designed with a high crown to provide insulation on the top of the head, and a wide stiff brim to provide shelter from both sun and precipitation for the face, neck and shoulders. The original fur-

felt Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...

hat was waterproof and shed rain. Overall, the hat was durable and lightweight. On the underside, the hat included a sweatband, a lining to protect the hat, and, as a memorial to earlier designs, a bow on its sweatband, which had the practical purpose of helping distinguish the front from the back. The original designs were natural in color with four-inch crowns and brims; a plain strap was used for the band. For years, Stetson worried about the waterproofing, and finally decided to make his hat of

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers a ...

felt. It took about 42 beaver belly pelts to produce a high quality hat. One story tells of a cowboy crossing a long dry stretch of prairie. His

canteen {{Primary sources, date=February 2007 Canteen is an Australian national support organisation for young people (aged 12–25) living with cancer; including cancer patients, their brothers and sisters, and young people with parents or primary carers ...

sprang a leak. He saved the drinking water by carrying it in his Stetson. Stetson featured advertising of a cowboy watering his horse with water carried in the crown. The wearer could also use the brim to direct water to a person's mouth. A high quality hat in good condition was also viewed in some places as a status symbol.Blevins, Winfred ''Dictionary of the American West: over 5,000 terms and expressions from Aarigaa! to Zopilote'' (2001) p. 370

Customization and change

The straight-sided, round cornered, flat brimmed original Boss of the Plains design dominated for about twenty years.Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) ''Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865–1970'' 1997 p. 73 Most 19th-century photographs show that the hat doesn't have an intentional crease at all. Most hats were kept open crown. However, through use, abuse, and customization by individual wearers, hats were modified from their original appearance. In particular, the crown would become dented, at first inadvertently, then by deliberate choice of individual owners. The brim was often rolled or curved and ornamentation was sometimes added. Often, these creases and brim shapes began to reflect where a particular hat owner lived or worked, and in some cases, even

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaqu ...

s on individual ranches could be identified by the crease in their hat. Thus, the manufactured styles also began to change. The first popular modification was a long crease sloping from the high back down towards the front, called the "Carlsbad crease" after a style used by wearers in

Carlsbad, New Mexico Carlsbad ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Eddy County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 32,238. Carlsbad is centered at the intersection of U.S. Routes 62/180 and 285, and is the principal city ...

. Another design, derived from the pointed top of the Mexican

sombrero A sombrero (Spanish , ) is a type of wide-brimmed Mexican men's hat used to shield the face and eyes from the sun. It usually has a high pointed crown, an extra-wide brim (broad enough to cast a shadow over the head, neck and shoulders of the w ...

, worked its way north and became known as the "Montana peak," which had four dents, originally derived from being handled on top with four fingers.

Popularization

Entertainers who promoted cowboy and western culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries popularized Stetson designs.

Buffalo Bill William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), known as "Buffalo Bill", was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years ...

had custom hats with very wide brims made for his Wild West shows, with later designs created for

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...

including the

Tom Mix Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western films between 1909 and 1935. He appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent films. He w ...

style "ten-gallon" hats used in

Western films Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US * Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...

. Over time, the working cowboy hat of the

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...

cowboy, as modified by popular entertainers and

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaq ...

competitors, became an essential part of the cowboy image. At times, various politicians, celebrities and law enforcement units adopted descendants of the Boss of the Plains hat to strengthen their association with the culture and values of the

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

. The Boss of the Plains-inspired design that became the modern cowboy hat has retained its basic features in construction and design since the first one in 1865, demonstrating the degree to which form succeeded in following function.Reynolds, William and Rich Rand (1995) ''The Cowboy Hat book.'' p. 8

Robert Baden-Powell Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, ( ; (Commonly pronounced by others as ) 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a British Army officer, writer, founder and first Chief Scout of the wor ...

learned of the practicality of the Boss of the Plains hat through his association with

Frederick Russell Burnham Frederick Russell Burnham DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teach ...

during the Second Matabele War of 1896–97, and he popularized the

campaign hat A campaign hat, sometimes called campaign cover, is a broad-brimmed felt or straw hat, with a high crown, pinched symmetrically at the four corners. The campaign hat is occasionally referred to as a Stetson, derived from its origin in the company ...

or "lemon squeezer" style (i.e. flat brim with four dents at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock) during the

Siege of Mafeking The siege of Mafeking was a 217-day siege battle for the town of Mafeking (now called Mafikeng) in South Africa during the Second Boer War from October 1899 to May 1900. The siege received considerable attention as Lord Edward Cecil, the son of ...

in the

Second Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. When Baden-Powell established the South African Constabulary in 1900, he chose the Boss of the Plains as their uniform headgear. Popular culture has it that, on receiving the first shipment of hats from the Stetson company, the handbill identified them as 'hats, B-P style', which was misconstrued as an allusion to Baden-Powell's initials. Baden-Powell later adopted the campaign hat for use by the

Boy Scouts Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are t ...

In popular culture

American author, Laurie Winn Carlson, wrote ''Boss of the Plains: The Hat That Won the West'', which tells the history behind this hat.

Footnotes

References

*Bender, Texan Bix. (1994) ''Hats & the cowboys who wear them.'' *Carlson, Laurie. (1998) ''Boss of the Plains, the hat that won the West.'' *Manns, William. (1997) ''Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West.'' *Reynolds, William and Rich Rand (1995) ''The Cowboy Hat book.'' *Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) ''Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865–1970.''

External links

In Search of the Real Cowboy Hat
''Cowboy Chronicle''. April 2004 reprint, accessed online April 1, 2009.

deathvalley49ers.org, accessed online April 28, 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boss Of The Plains 1860s fashion 1865 introductions 19th-century fashion 20th-century fashion Hats Headgear Rider apparel Western wear