It’s The Pitts: Rat Hats
Sometimes I collect things because of how strange they are. Take my Stetson nutria hat, for example.
Ever since I was eight years old and got my first Little League ball cap, I have lived my life under a hat of some sort – cowboy hat, oilfield hard hat, welding hat, sombrero, war bonnet. You name it, I’ve worn it.
I now have 400 ball caps, a couple dozen old and dusty Stetson cowboy hats and almost that many Resistol straws. Out of all of them, my Stetson nutria is the most valuable, even beating out a hat autographed by Roy Rogers himself.
I bought the nutria hat at the estate sale of a plumber on Dec. 7, 2018 and paid $20 for it. It has a three-inch brim and it’s brown – and rightly so. On the inside of the brim, embossed with gold leaf, are the words “Nutria Quality,” which is a big laugh considering what it’s made of.
Throughout the glorious history of the John B. Stetson Hat Company, they’ve been known for their quality, and during all of this time, the mad hatters who made the hats either used beaver, rabbit – which was half the price of beaver – or a combination of the two.
The only exception are the nutria hats they made in small quantity.
Those who live along the gulf coast probably know a nutria is a river rat with 20 huge orange teeth. Now you know why I’ve never worn my nutria hat and never will.
To the best of my knowledge, it’s the only hat made by the Stetson Hat Company that didn’t have any X’s embossed on the brim.
In the 1940s, Stetson wanted to find an alternative to beaver, which was highly priced due to a shortage. Hat builders during this period often suffered from insanity and later this was found to be caused by the mercuric nitrate used in the felting process.
I can only assume it was one of these crazy mad hatters who thought cowboys would wear hats made from rats.
The nutria were imported into Louisiana specifically for the hat trade, and most of the imports came from giddy South Americans in the early 1930s who convulsed with laughter Americans would take the rats off of their hands and pay good money for the disgusting creatures.
Had the Stetson Hat Company done their research, they’d have quickly discovered nutria were being shot on sight and poisoned in other parts of the world due to their propensity to tear down dikes, levees and irrigation ditches, and it didn’t take long for them to start doing the same here.
By 2002, most occupied states had a bounty on nutria.
All this for a rat hat no one was proud to wear.
Not only do nutria cause immeasurable physical damage, they also threaten human health because they spread diseases like tularemia, tuberculosis and septicemia.
In the United Kingdom, nutria are listed among the 100 worst species on Earth. They will fight a dog and have been known to attack humans. In the U.S., it’s illegal to have one as a pet.
The females have two litters per year – but never more than six litters in their life – and a female can give birth to as many as 13 little rats at a time.
In a desperate attempt to find something positive to say about the orange-toothed devils, Russia tried to use them as dog food, but even a Russian dog has the good sense to say “NYET!” to nutria.
It’s been my observation cowboys are not easily grossed out. After all, these are people who willingly stick their arms up cow’s butts, but I’ve never come across a cowboy yet wearing a Stetson nutria hat.
After reading this column, my wife demanded had she known my hat was made from rats, she’d have never let the thing in the house in the first place.
So, it is with great sadness in my heart I’m offering my rat hat for sale to the general public, and the first person who’ll pay me $1,000 in cash can acquire this item of great historical significance. But please know in advance under no circumstance will I autograph it and have my name associated with the disgusting thing.
