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cowboy hat is a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat best known as the defining piece of attire for the cowboy. Today it is worn by many people, and is particularly associated with ranch workers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, with many country music, regional Mexican and sertanejo music performers, and with participants in the North American rodeo circuit. It is recognized around the world as part of traditional Old West apparel.
The cowboy hat as known today has many antecedents to its design, including Mexican hats such as the sombrero, the various designs of wide-brimmed hats worn by farmers and stockmen in the eastern United States, as well as the designs used by the United States Cavalry.
The first western model was the open-crowned "Boss of the Plains", and after that came the front-creased Carlsbad, destined to become the most prominent cowboy style. The high-crowned, wide-brimmed, soft-felt western hats that followed are intimately associated with the cowboy image.
According to Lucius Beebe, the bowler was the most widely-worn hat in the American West, prompting him to assert, in contradiction to popular belief, that the bowler, not the cowboy hat, was "the hat that won the West". The working cowboy wore wide-brimmed and high-crowned hats. The hats were most likely adopted from Civil-War-era slouch hats that were commonly worn by Confederate soldiers who lacked the official uniform and kepi hat of the Union army; they may have also been influenced by the Mexican before the invention of the modern design. John Batterson Stetson is credited for originating the modern-day American cowboy hat. The original "Boss of the Plains", manufactured by Stetson in 1865, was flat-brimmed, had a straight sided crown, with rounded corners. These light-weight, waterproof hats were natural in color, with four-inch crowns and brims. A plain hatband was fitted to adjust head size. The sweatband bore Stetson's name. There was only one style of hat, but they were made in different qualities ranging from one-grade material at five dollars apiece to pure beaver felt hats for thirty dollars each. J. B. Stetson was the first to market the "Boss of the Plains" to cowboys, and it has remained the universal image of the American West. The charisma of the Wild West was carried back East when adventurers returned in the expensive "Boss of the Plains"-style hat. In the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, a hat was an indispensable item in every man's wardrobe. Stetson focused on expensive, high-quality hats that represented a real investment for the working cowboy and a statement of success for the city dweller.
The cowboy hat has been adopted as a regional identifier among Māori tribes (iwi) living in Gisborne District of New Zealand's North Island collectively called "Ngā Kaupoi" ('the cowboys') for their native adoption of horses; one of its resident politicians, Rawiri Waititi, is well known for his hat-donning appearance. Hawaii's paniolo wear papale woven from pandanus leaves taken directly from the design of the Mexican sombrero.
Later as the mystique of the Wild West was popularized by entertainers such as Buffalo Bill and western films starring actors such as Tom Mix, the Cowboy hat came to symbolize the American West. John Wayne christened them "the hat that won the West". The Boss of the Plains design influenced various wide-brimmed hats worn by and all over the United States. Later designs were customized for law enforcement, military and motion pictures.
The first American law-enforcement agency to adopt Stetson's western hat as part of their uniform was the Texas Rangers. The Texas Legislature designated the cowboy hat as the official "State Hat of Texas" in 2015.
One theory is that the term "ten-gallon" is a corruption of the Spanish modifier tan galán, which loosely translates as "really handsome" or "so fine". For example, "un sombrero tan galán" translates as "such a fine hat".
Another theory is that the term "ten-gallon" is a corruption of the Spanish term galón, which means "galloon", a type of narrow braided trim around the crown, possibly a style adapted by vaqueros. When Texas cowboys misunderstood the word galón for "gallon", the popular, though incorrect, legend may have been born. According to Reynolds and Rand, "The term ten-gallon did not originally refer to the holding capacity of the hat, but to the width of a Mexican sombrero hatband, and is more closely related to this unit of measurement by the Spanish than to the water-holding capacity of a Stetson."
Early print advertising by Stetson showed a cowboy giving his horse a drink of water from a hat. The Stetson company notes that a "ten-gallon" hat (equivalent to ) only holds .
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