TIP OF THE HAT

Flux: Paris Hatters has survived Depression, WWII, changing trends. Next up: COVID-19.

For 104 years, ranchers, tourists, actors, presidents and fashionistas have been coming to Paris Hatters for their customfitted headwear.

Inside the downtown store, hundreds of hats hang from the walls, sit in stacks on shelves and wait in boxes in backrooms. The original cash register, which still works, sits on a countertop.

Photos of famous customers are tacked on walls. They include Pope John Paul II, Tommy Lee Jones, Johnny Cash, B.B. King, Dwight Yoakam and Christian Louboutin.

Bob Dylan came in wearing a sweatshirt with a hoodie in the middle of the summer, said Abe Cortez, who runs the business with his wife, Myrna Cortez, and their daughter, Alexandra Cortez Sledge. Boxing promoter Don King asked what could be done about his hair.

“I was just kind of fooling. I said, ‘Well, we can cut the top off behind the hat band. Your hair would fit right through it,’ ” Abe Cortez recalls. “He goes, ‘Let’s do that.’ ”

Cortez’s family has operated the business since 1917, starting with a store at Alamo and Market streets during World War I and later relocating to Broadway because of HemisFair ’68.

Paris Hatters has three employees and a floater, said Myrna Cortez. The family owns its building, a boon as downtown rents rise.

They’ve sold hats through World War II, the Great Depression and the 2008 recession; stayed afloat as fashion changed and hats went in and out of favor; and adjusted to the advent of the internet and the rise in online shopping.

“There’s not a lot of people who do this hand-shaping and specialization of the look of the hat,” Myrna Cortez said.

Now, they and other business owners downtown are grappling with the coronavirus pandemic and a dearth of tourism and events.

The San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo is “like another version of Christmas” for Paris Hatters, and they are waiting to see how sales fare this year, Alexandra Cortez Sledge said. The scaledback event runs through Feb. 28.

Along with shaping new hats, Paris Hatters also refurbishes worn hats.

“The service aspect of our business is very helpful when times are bad, because if somebody can’t afford to come out and buy a new hat, they’re going to want to restore their old hat,” Myrna Cortez said. “That’s a really nice fallback for any business. It’s going to save their butt when times are hard.

“It’s been helpful during COVID. Really, we can’t complain. We’ve been through hard times before. But I never personally experienced an absolute shutdown, closing the door.

That was really hard.”

William Luther / Staff photographer Paris Hatters owners Myrna and Abe Cortez, and Alexandra Cortez Sledge say sales at the San Antonio institution are picking up.