Texan cowboy hats bear vintage Danbury ‘brand’
I was first introduced to Danbury in the 1970s when my Mom would bring me and my brother to the State Fair. I have fond memories of the fresh ice cream and the nice folks who brought me to the lost child pen when I was distracted by some activity and lost track of Mom’s whereabouts!
As fate would have it, I again crossed paths with Danbury when I was recruited into the Union Carbide Law Department, where I was employed from 1993 until the Dow merger in 2000. I was disappointed that the State Fair had been displaced by a mall, even though it was pretty nice, I must admit. We lived at Deer Hill Arms for a time before buying our first home in New Milford. It was during this period that I became most acquainted with Danbury’s history as the center of the American hat-making industry.
My career next took me to a pharmaceutical giant in the Philadelphia suburbs, a copper and gold behemoth in Phoenix, Arizona, and then back into public service as an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation. I now reside in Bryan, Texas, and am on the faculty at Texas A&M University, which is where this story begins.
As a transplanted Yankee, I figured the quickest way to gain some Texas street cred would be to buy cowboy boots, belt buckles and, of course, appropriate cowboy hats. I’d been informed that one of the best hatmakers in Texas was an outfit named Catalena Hatters and it was in nearby downtown Bryan. Catalena was founded in 1983 by Sammy and Carolyn Catalena, a rancher couple who had always been interested in custom hats. One day, Sammy came across a magazine advertisement for the sale of a hattery in Florida — conditions of sale, however, required that the equipment be dedicated to the manufacture of custom hats and not be folded into a large corporate entity. Sammy made the deal, traveled to Florida and drove a truckload of equipment back to Texas, opening the doors to Catalena Hatters in October 1983. Over the ensuing 38 years, the business has become a family love affair with sons Scott and Travis working on a daily basis with the custom hat operation.
I wound up purchasing two hats, a vented straw hat for the hot, sticky Central Texas summers and a 30X beaver felt hat for the cooler temps (and now, having survived a real Arctic freeze, I wish I’d sprung for 100X!). Both crowns have been molded into the classic “Cutter” with a deep center crease flanked by side creases with notable temple bulges. Until I reviewed Catalena’s stockroom, however, I’d never realized that hats are produced as blanks with rounded crowns and flat brims and then sized and steamed according to the wearer’s wishes right in the shop!
I was pleased to work with Travis as he steamed and hand-bent my hats into their perfect shapes. He then treated me to a visit of the production area where hats go from wool and straw into finished blanks. But what amazed me most is that the vintage hat-making machinery they used bore the trademarks of machinery used by the great hat-making factories of Danbury, Connecticut, way back in the early 20th Century. I felt privileged to be one of the few individuals who had awareness of this connection and felt compelled to report back to my old stomping ground that that Danbury hat-making tradition lives on. Go Hatters! The accompanying pictures are of weavers, steamers, pressers, etc., utilized in the hat mills in Danbury — many still bearing long-extinct corporate badging — still in service to this day making world-class hat products for cowboys across the globe. Impressive history indeed.