A Granddaughter Keeps Her Family Tradition Alive at Texas Hatters

The family business started with her grandfather, Marvin Gammage, who became a master hatter in 1926 after apprenticing at a shop in Houston. He started his own custom hat store, which changed locations and names several times, his son Manny joining him in hat-making along the way. When the shop moved to Austin in 1965, Manny suggested one final name change. “He said, ‘Why don’t you just call it Texas Hatters because you’re never going to move out of Texas?’” Torres says. “That’s when it stuck and became Texas Hatters.”

In 1980, Texas Hatters moved from the chaotic intersection of West Oltorf Street and South Lamar to a larger space in Buda with more parking. In 2006, Torres and husband David Torres, who had been one of her father’s apprentices, relocated the shop to Lockhart. One of the highlights of the three-thousand-square-foot space is the mini-museum—two large hallways covered with photos of celebrities from Ronald Reagan to Robert Duvall wearing custom hats. The displays also include a series of hats, including ones worn by famed one-legged cowboy Hackberry Johnson, Donald Sutherland in the movie The Hunley, and Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer, the late Paul English.

Every hat is custom-made by hand from fur felt, Panama fabric, or a combination of both. Torres still works with the same techniques and equipment used by her father and grandfather, including century-old crown irons and hat blocks. “We call ourselves a working museum,” she says. In this short film, which includes archival footage of the store’s history, you’ll get a deeper look at the story and process behind every Texas Hatters creation—hats that can be passed down for generations.