Many Hats:

Local shop caps diverse Fort Worth nostalgia

By Laura Acuff (Tolentino)

From its dusty beginnings as a cattle drive stop-off on the way to Kansas, Fort Worth has been welcoming visitors in a western embrace, marking the gateway to “where the West begins.” And since its establishment in 1911, Peters Bros. Hats has witnessed it all.

Shop owner and Master Hatter Joe Peters inherited the family business from his grandfather in 1991 but has worked in hats since 1972, when he began working for the shop, making cowboy hats two weeks a year for the Forth Worth Stock show and Rodeo. The shop has observed downtown Fort Worth from its new location, 909 Houston St., since 1933, just a couple doors down from its original address. 

“Fort Worth is kinda like cowboys and culture,” Peters said in a slow Texan drawl as he leaned back in his chair and glanced out the barred window as passerby sauntered and vehicles coasted down Houston Street. 

“There’s been tremendous change,” the Fort Worth local added. Born in 1945, Peters said he first attended school downtown, just a few blocks from where his mother helped out in the shop. 

Fluorescent lights flicker gently down on the creaking shop’s creaking wood floors, illuminating stacks of hats in various stages of construct. The only spare space on the shop’s walls boasts a collage of autographed photographs: one from 1912, another of Tanya Tucker and even one of “The Duke” himself—John Wayne.

From the windows of his family’s shop, Peters watched Fort Worth develop and, eventually, hit a slump in the 1950s, as malls and suburbs gained popularity.

“I watched a lot of the famous stores disappear,” he said. “And downtown got kind of a bad reputation. It kind of got rundown.”

The 1970s and 80s brought a resurgence of popularity in downtown entertainment and some gentrification.

“It’s become a better place not only to come to but to live,” Peters said. “It’s become a better place not only to come to but to live. It’s just a bigger, brighter and better downtown than its ever been.”

Through it all, Peters said Fort Worth has maintained its small town, friendly atmosphere, first adopted by merchants trying to lure back cowboys from the cattle drives for repeat business. And it’s this quality that distinguishes the city from its metropolitan surroundings.

“It seemed like every time I went to Dallas, everyone was from somewhere else, and they were all in a hurry.”

But Fort Worth has everything Dallas has, just at a slower, friendlier pace, he insists. 

Musician Michael Hamilton, who stopped by Peters’ shop to buy a custom cowboy hat, agrees. Although Hamilton traveled the country earlier in his career, he has called Fort Worth home for the last 40 years and says Fort Worth’s hometown feel kept him coming back.

“It feels less affected,” Hamilton said. “[Fort Worth] definitely feels more like a hometown, as opposed to an entertainment venue.”

Although entertainment certainly plays a key role in most of Fort Worth’s local industries, Hamilton added, noting that many people who can’t genetically claim a cowboy heritage don jeans and a cowboy hat to maintain the local culture.

“It has an intentional cultural reference,” Hamilton said. “People have made the effort to keep the so-called ‘Western Culture’ in place. That western culture has been kept in place intentionally so as to deliberately misplace a suburban theme.”

But it’s not a town of drugstore cowboys, he amended. The people of Fort Worth simply strive to uphold tradition.

“It’s very much real because it’s the only way to continue it forward into the next generation. We have this cross-cultural assimilation which, in and of itself, is real cool. If you make it an ends to a means, then it’s insincere.”

Journeyman Hatter Javier Rodriguez has lived in Fort Worth for 25 years and worked at Peters Bros. Hats for the last 3-and-a-half years. He, too, noted its friendly atmosphere.

“I grew up here; it’s peaceful,” Rodriguez said, who grew up going to Fort Worth’s rodeos. 

Although he has had the chance to live elsewhere, he says Fort Worth is his home.

“I can’t complain,” he said. “Fort Worth is more traditional in the old ways, in welcoming visitors.”

For 25-year Fort Worth resident and retiree Tom Ward, Fort Worth’s relaxed atmosphere makes the traffic worth navigating. 

“Look at downtown Fort Worth,” he said. “Who wouldn’t like it? It’s the opposite of Dallas in every way. Dallas is cosmopolitan, and this is down home.

Ward dropped by Peters Bros. to have an old hat shrunk. While he said he has lived in Texas all his life and had the opportunity to travel across the United States, Fort Worth’s big city attractions keep him interested. 

“It’s big enough to have everything without being too big,” he said. “I like it. I’m here ‘cause I wanna be.”

After helping Ward finalize his purchase, Peters returns to assist Hamilton.

Standing in stark contrast to the rugged hat-making shop, Hamilton seems less classically country than his hat-making counterpart. His patent-leather shoes shine almost as brightly as his two hoop, gold earrings, as Peters measures the musician’s head for his hat order. 

The master hatter’s worn brown loafers pad quietly across the floor as he goes to ring up Hamilton’s order; his faded jeans belying the established business he runs. The two seem opposites in style, but both entered the shop with similar goals: to preserve Texas culture—one by making the cowboy hats, the other by buying one.

As Hamilton said, Fort Worthers may not set out each day to preserve their city history, but they work together to uphold tradition.

“Forth Worth wears its cultural heritage on its sleeve,” he said, “and there’s no embarrassment in doing so.”

First Place winning feature story for the Texas Interscholastic Press Association’s 2011 on-site competition