Panama hat miners of the California Gold Rush traveled to California via the Isthmus of Panama and Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1906 , U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the construction site of the Panama Canal and was photographed wearing a Panama hat, which further increased the hats' popularity. Although the Panama hat continues to provide a livelihood for thousands of Ecuadorians, fewer than a dozen weavers capable of making the finest "Montecristi superfinos" remain. Production in Ecuador is dwindling, due to economic problems in Ecuador and competition from Chinese hat producers. The tamsui hat was a straw hat made in Formosa
Battersby Hats Battersby Hats Battersby Hats was the trading name of Battersby & Co, a hat manufacturer of Stockport, England. The firm once had a capacity of 12,000 hats per week but it declined in the second half of the twentieth century and merged with other hat manufacturers in 1966 before hat production ceased altogether in 1997. Battersby's Hat Factory in Offerton, Stockport, first appeared on Ordnance Survey maps in 1895. At one time, Battersby employed over 1,000 people. In May 1906, a fire gutted their factory at Offerton. The fire started on the evening of the 22nd and burned all night