The 1830s were fraught times for hatters everywhere. Fashionable men clung to the beaver hat for centuries, but in the early 1800s that fashion was threatened by over-hunting the chubby rodents.

In The New York Times in 1917, a year in which it was forecast that “the civilized world of women will wear more fur than ever before,” a reporter asked a pelt importer what his furs were made of.

Local professional trapper Loyd Horn models a top hat from the 1930s made from a beaver pelt. Horn was generous in donating several pelts and live traps essential to the current “Fur Trade from ...

A hat once belonging to Napoleon is expected to fetch over $850,000 at auction. Whether in paintings, statues, or even film depictions, the former French emperor is often seen in a black bicorne hat.