Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1908 — In a Mexican Hat Store. [ARTICLE]

In a Mexican Hat Store.

Half a million straw hats is no uncommon sight to be met with at one time in the hat stores of Merlco. The hats are made of a long pampas grass which grows nowhere else in the world. It Is specially cultivated for the hat Industry. So rapidly are the hats made that skilled workmen can turn out ten or a dozen a day, and they are then sent to all parts of the world. They cost about fourpence each to make, and retailed at from 1 shilling sixpence to 4 shillings and are so durable tha + it not infrequently happens that those of an economical turn of mind make a single hat last ten years.