The 160-year-old brand may be synonymous with the West, but it was originally born here — in a one-room workshop at 7th and Callowhill streets.
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Stetson’s former store on Sansom Street, in 1914 / Photograph courtesy of Stetson
Looking at a Stetson hat, it’s impossible to not think of the West. The very silhouette of the brand’s archetypal cowboy hat calls to mind the region’s rugged topography, its crown pinched and creased like the craggy peaks of mountains, its undulating brim as wide as the plains. It’s an enduring symbol of the Wild West, inextricably linked to Hollywood Westerns and rope- and rifle-wielding stars like Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and John Wayne. And yet the Stetson hat was born here in Philadelphia — in a one-room workshop at 7th and Callowhill streets.
“Stetson is closely associated with the West, but we see ourselves first and foremost as an American brand,” says Stetson CEO Robert Dundon, himself a Philly-area native and Temple grad. “Given that, it’s only fitting that an iconic American brand like Stetson would be founded in a city known as the birthplace of America.”
The company’s 160-year history, celebrated with Rizzoli’s recently released tome Stetson: American Icon, begins thusly: In the 1850s, John B. Stetson, the son of a New Jersey hatmaker, traveled west seeking fortune, adventure, and a cure for his tuberculosis in the clear, dry mountain air. While prospecting for gold in the Colorado Rockies, Stetson noticed the poorly made hats of his fellow pioneers and fashioned a wide-brimmed, waterproof hat from felted animal furs, which he sold to a passing bullwhacker for a five-dollar gold coin.
In 1865, Stetson returned east and opened his namesake business. He soon launched his “Boss of the Plains” design — a flat-brimmed topper with a high, rounded crown inspired by the sombreros worn by vaqueros (the Mexican and Spanish horseback cattle herders who were the predecessors of the American cowboy). The hat catapulted him to success, and within 10 years, his company had moved to a nine-acre campus on the outskirts of Kensington. (This campus would eventually include a hospital, free dispensary, and lending library for its 5,000 workers, who enjoyed Stetson’s progressive benefits — health care, education programs, and profit sharing.)
Bruno Mars for his 2024 collaboration with the brand / Photograph by Daniel Ramos
Though the factory is no longer there — manufacturing moved to Missouri in 1977, then to Garland, Texas, where the company is currently headquartered, in 1986 — Stetson’s Philly legacy lives on through retailers like Alfonso Aramburo, who sells the cowboy hats in Viejo Oeste Western Wear #2, his Italian Market shop. (You might know it by the eight-foot-tall fiberglass cowboy boot stationed out front.)
“It’s the most recognized brand of hats in the U.S. and worldwide,” Aramburo says. “There are so many different profiles, shapes, and materials.” But it’s his own family history with the brand that resonates the most: “My grandfather and my dad wore those hats all the time.” (The brand is also carried locally at Center City’s Les Richards Menswear, Boot Barn in Cherry Hill and North Wales, and Leo’s Apparel in North Philly; Aramburo carries Stetson’s cowboy and dress hats at his Delaware outpost.)
But even as Stetson has steadily risen to stratospheric fame, the company hasn’t forgotten its Philly roots. “Our signature hats are now made in Texas, but we still live by the values John B. Stetson established during his early days in Philadelphia,” says Dundon. Stetson unveiled a limited-edition beaver-fur dress hat called “the Philadelphia 160th Edition” as a tribute to the city it first called home. A five-dollar gold coin emblem glints on the hat band, symbolizing John B. Stetson’s first sale, a happy harbinger of things to come.
The Stetson Story
Founder John B. Stetson / Photograph courtesy of Stetson
1862: John B. Stetson designs and sells his first hat.
1865: Stetson borrows $60 from his sister to found his company.
1874: Production moves to a factory on the outskirts of Kensington.
1906: John B. Stetson dies; he gives most of his fortune to charity before his death.
1911: Fresh off winning the World Series, the Philadelphia Athletics are featured in a Stetson hat marketing campaign.
1932: The company begins producing hats for women.
1977: Stetson moves its manufacturing to Missouri, then to Garland, Texas, in 1986.
Photograph by Blair Caldwell
2024: Beyoncé wears a Stetson hat on the cover of her Cowboy Carter album.
2025: Stetson celebrates 160 years in business.
Published as “City Slicker” in the December 2025/January 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.