Your New Era doesnt have nearly the literary meaning as my cowboy hat!

When I dream about cowboys (which has become more and more often) I usually have the same picture in my head. A younger cowboy, probably 25, in jeans, a nice worn in shirt, and a worn in cowboy hat. Now the last part is truly was sets the cowboy apart from some mall-dwelling hipster. And in fact, I had quite the fascination with Cowboy hats when I was younger. We had a dress up box at my house and I used to frequently dress up as a cowboy and rule over the empty grass-lands on part of my property. I could be a pretty normal looking person, but once I put on that Cowboy hat I was suddenly transformed. But where did the cowboy hat originate? What dreamy figure designed the beautiful curves of the original cowboy hat?
We often see cowboys wearing old civil war clothing in different films, but what not often seen is that cowboys used to wear old Civil War hats as well. Realizing that most of the people in the old west were castoffs looking for new jobs, it makes sense that most of them just wore old top hats. That was until John Stetson. Stetson was known for his great ability with fur and clothes, and also happened to be on the move to the West. One day on a hunting trip, Stetson thought it would be funny to make a huge hat, with a huge brim. He continued to wear the hat around (he was probably drunk and wanted to be a jackass) and he realized, along with his friends, that the hat was extremely functional and quite handsome (if I say so myself.) When Stetson returned from the trip he began to produce the hats. Since then not much has changed. The Stetson is the most common style of hat and a few other variations have been added. The pork pie, the Canadian, buckaroos... the list goes on.
As the basic style of the cowboy hat has not changed, so has the meaning. I do not have the time to delve into the meanings of different styles of hats just yet, I plan on following my passion throughout the semester. Cowboy hats carry more than functionality, they carry history and style. Actors, politicians, and confused men in weird phases of their life use the hat to say something about themselves but this hat will always belong to the rugged western boys of my dreams.
Here is some instruction on how to take care of your hat..