Hat Maker’s Craft and Life Echo Old West

He is of an era when men rode the range, packed steel revolvers and toughed it out with nature, protected only by their wits and good fortune.

The problem is that Larry Rosenbaum lives in a time of cell phones, digital recordings and television.

Still, Rosenbaum has managed to carve out a niche for himself, creating a way of life that resembles the 1890s more than the 1990s. He doesn’t own a television, uses a bedroll instead of a tent when camping and shuns matches in favor of steel and flint.

Rosenbaum is one of the few people left in the nation who make beaver felt cowboy hats in the old tradition--handmade, individually crafted to fit a person’s build and character.

He is a one-of-a-kind hat maker in a time when few people wear hats. But he sells his wares in a place where the rough-and-tumble lives of pioneers are appreciated--Mission San Juan Capistrano.

“He’s one of those souls that somehow doesn’t seem to be congruous with modernization,” said Charles Rea, a friend and fellow western enthusiast. “He is the kind of person that you usually would not find in Orange County.”

After making hats for 24 years, Rosenbaum says he knows of no better way to make a living. Every day, donning cowboy boots, vest and jeans, Wyoming slope beaver felt hat and his bolo tie, he sets up shop beneath the soldier’s barracks at the mission. Making hats is not just a way to put food on the table, it’s a way of life.

“I can take any person and make them look neat in a hat,” said Rosenbaum, who lives in San Juan Capistrano. “I can make you look funky or suave and debonair. I’ve made hats in every style for everyone you can think of--even a donkey.”

His friends, themselves Wild West historical buffs, say Rosenbaum and his hats are a rare breed.

“Ninety-five percent of the hats are made by large companies that do everything by machine,” said Richard Bean, owner of the Winchester Hat Corp. in Tennessee, which sells beaver felt to many hat companies. “There gets to be maybe a very small handful [of hat makers] that do everything with no machinery at all.”

Larry Rosenbaum was not born in the wilds of Montana or Wyoming. Rather, he came from a small town in Indiana, where his father was a steelworker and his mother a homemaker. His love of history and for all things western came from the strong influence of his maternal grandfather, Orin Ritter.

Ritter was a cattle rancher during Wyoming’s Johnson County Wars in the 1890s, in which owners of large cattle ranches and smaller operators fought bitterly over land and property. Ritter’s visits to Indiana left a strong impression on the young Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum longed to live the rugged life like his grandfather, wearing cowboy boots, a chain pocket watch, three-piece suits and, of course, a .45-caliber Long Colt single-action pistol at his side.

“I looked at him like an idol. Grandpa was a hard old bird,” said Rosenbaum, who is soft-spoken and shy. “They lived a hard life out there.”

When he was old enough to leave home, Rosenbaum headed to Wyoming, where he was a horseman. Then he began selling Civil War memorabilia at road shows.

When a close friend who made hats died, Rosenbaum was offered the chance to follow in his footsteps. And the Ritter Hat Co. was born.

Making hats was rough initially.

“At first, I was a wreck, I thought I knew how to do it,” said Rosenbaum. “But then it got easier and easier.”

Now it takes him only 30 minutes to fashion a hat for anybody, working only with steam, an iron, his hands and a few little gadgets to press the beaver felt into the desired shape.

Does a man want to look like Gary Cooper, the strong, silent type? Or Gene Autry, the clean-cut, good cowboy? Does a woman want a tough look like Barbara Stanwyck, or a sultry look like Jane Russell? Pull the rim down to hide the glance or push the hat up to show the face? Rosenbaum has studied it all.

“Hats should set off your facial features,” Rosenbaum said to a woman who was interested in buying a large-rimmed hat to protect her face from the sun. “Hats have a lot to do with a person’s character.”

Since he began selling goods at the mission, Rosenbaum has been making about seven hats a day. His prices range from $75 to $140, depending on the size.

Beaver felt, which requires the animals only to be shaved and not killed, is very durable, Rosenbaum said. The material survives hard, cold winters, is breathable and protects against the sun’s harsh rays in the summer, he said.

Officials at the mission saw an opportunity in Rosenbaum, offering him a spot near the blacksmith, weavers and spinners on the grounds.

Although Rosenbaum says he regrets that he didn’t live in a more western era, at least, he says, he has found a corner of the world where he comes pretty close.

“There are a lot of things that people do today that I just can’t relate to,” he said. “I believe in walks in the moonlight--the simple things in life.”