Last updated: August 9, 2023
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50 Nifty Finds #31: Going in Circles
One of the highlights of the National Park Service (NPS) History Collection is a leather hatband that belonged to Horace M. Albright, former NPS assistant director and director and Yellowstone National Park superintendent. There was never any doubt that it would be the subject of a 50 Nifty Finds article. When we sat down to write it, however, we quickly found we had more questions than answers. Follow our staff on a research journey that goes from a one-of-a-kind hatband attributed to a former NPS director to a forgotten chapter of NPS uniform history.
Hatband History
When the NPS adopted its first official uniform in June 1920, it didn’t include a leather hatband for the rangers’ Stetson hats. Hatbands help hats fit and retain their shape, but they can also be decorative. Photographs from the 1920s show that some rangers wore leather or beaded hatbands, but most hats sported the plain grosgrain ribbed fabric ribbon that came on the Stetsons. The official NPS leather hatband was adopted on January 16, 1930. The design included sequoia cones, foliage, and “USNPS” tooled onto a brown leather band, punctuated with silver sequoia cones. Silver ring fasteners and leather ties close the hatband on the left. With some minor changes, that hatband design is still used today.
Albright's Hatband
Although Albright’s hatband is a highlight of the NPS History Collection, little was known about it. The reddish-brown leather hatband features tree branches and sequoia cones, a mountain lion and a bison on the sides, and “NPS” in a Gothic-style font on the front. Silver ring fasteners and leather ties close the hatband at the back. The edges of the hatband are abraded in areas, suggesting it was used. The information that came with it when it was received in the early 1970s was limited to its association with Albright and a 1920 date, the source of which is unknown. It didn’t come to the NPS History Collection directly from Albright; one of the NPS managers brought it to the collection, and no one documented how he came to have it.
It was believed to be a one-of-a-kind personal item. In fact, when R. Bryce Workman used the objects and documents in the NPS History Collection to research his book National Park Service Uniforms: Badges and Insignia 1894-1991, he ignored it entirely when writing the history of the NPS hatband.
The first challenge to writing about it today was to prove that it did indeed belong to Albright and to determine if and when he wore it with his NPS uniform. We scoured available photographs from Albright's career and his family photos in the NPS History Collection looking for photos of him (or anyone else) wearing the hatband, either with an NPS Stetson or another hat. Most photos of Albright’s ranger hat clearly show the Stetson grosgrain ribbon or were taken at an angle where the hatband can’t be seen. In a handful of images, he appears to be wearing a beaded hatband. Fewer than a dozen have darker bands that could be leather, but no pattern or lettering can be made out. A small number show Albright wearing the official NPS hatband. After reviewing over 800 photos in the NPS History Collection and others that are readily available online, we finally found the hatband in a photo! We can state with certainty is this hatband belonged to Albright and that he wore it while in uniform. Unlike many of the Albright photos in the collection, this one is precisely dated to July 29, 1929. Albright had become NPS director seven months earlier.
Verifying Albright’s connection to the hatband was significant, but it left many unanswered questions, including when it was made, who made it, and why. The 1920 date seems early based on the photographic evidence, yet too specific to ignore. Was it only a coincidence that 1920 was also when the first official NPS uniform was approved? Had the cataloger in the 1970s assumed that it was part of his first official uniform, or was there an undocumented source for that date? As superintendent at Yellowstone and NPS assistant director from 1919 to 1928, hundreds of photographs document Albright’s hat with a grosgrain ribbon. Given the late date of the only documented photograph of him with it, was the leather hatband something Albright commissioned when he became director? Was it a gift? The two animals on it commonly represented Yosemite (cougar) and Yellowstone (bison) national parks in the 1920s. Albright had been superintendent at Yellowstone but not Yosemite. Was there an unknown connection there, or is there another story behind it entirely?
Perhaps where it was made could shed light on its history. Albright’s hatband has a maker’s mark on it, hidden underneath the leather ties. It was made by the Visalia Stock Saddle Company in San Francisco. The company’s stamp in the leather is a mark of quality. Established in 1869, it is renowned for its stock saddles and leather work. San Francisco could be a clue, either because of its proximity to California national parks or, intriguingly, because the 1928 National Park Conference was held there. Creating a special band for the ranger hats was one of the topics on the agenda. According to the meeting minutes, a prototype hatband was submitted for discussion. Unfortunately the meeting minutes don’t describe it or report who brought it. They do, however, record a criticism of sequoia cones on it because it was significant to California rather than the NPS as a whole. Could Albright’s hatband be that prototype? Did he leave the meeting with it and then decide to wear it?
We contacted the Visalia Stock Saddle Company, which still operates today, in hopes of finding corporate archives that would shed light on who designed and ordered it and when. Sadly we were told that a fire had destroyed all their early records. A company representative suggested it could be the work of Jack Kendall, one of their exceptional saddle makers and silversmiths, as he did similar carvings on saddles, belts, and other items. Without additional records, however, that can't be confirmed, and we couldn’t answer any of our remaining questions. We were at a dead end and set the research aside to work on other projects.
As often happens in museum research, a few months later new information was found while we were looking for something else. In this case, it was found more than 2,500 miles away from the hatband at Yosemite. A request for information about the sleeve insignia on Albright’s uniform in Yosemite's collection for another 50 Nifty Finds article revealed a letter that renewed our excitement. On May 4, 1972, after donating his uniform to the park, Albright wrote to Lawrence S. Nahm, the park's curator, describing a hatband and providing clues to its history:
Back about 1966 I sent up to your department the hatband I wore much of the time I was in uniform. It was made by Chief Ranger Forest Townsley of Yosemite Park, who was skilled in leather work.
Finally, a name! But was he referring to the same hatband? His recollection that Forest Townsley made it, rather than the Visalia Stock Saddle Company, is wrong if it’s the same one. Perhaps Townsley gave it to him, and he assumed he made it because he knew Townsley was a skilled leatherworker? Townsley’s grandfather, John Cane Matthews, was a harness maker, and his father, Willis Townsley, worked for him in Iowa. It seems reasonable to assume that Townsley learned leathermaking skills from his father. Albright’s statement that he wore it a lot isn’t reflected in the photos, but that isn’t conclusive evidence. We've already proven that he wore it on at least one occasion in 1929. Albright’s letter was written about 40 years after he left the NPS, when he was 82 years old. It wouldn’t be surprising if some of the details faded with time. Could we find evidence to support if, when, and why Townsely gave Albright this hatband?
Forest S. Townsley started his career in June 1904 as a patrolman on the Sulphur Springs Reservation in Oklahoma Territory. He became a park ranger at Platt National Park (now Chickasaw National Recreation Area) when it was created out of Sulphur Springs in 1906. While there he was involved in early efforts to create a uniform for the park’s rangers. He transferred to Yosemite in 1913. Three years later he was promoted to chief ranger, a position he held for 27 years. Townsley suffered an aortic aneurysm and died while on a fishing trip in the park on August 11, 1943. Albright later described him as “a man who contributed both skills and force of character that became recognized as desirable in rangers.”
Additional research into Townsley didn’t reveal anything about the creation of the hatbands, but it was still a crucial clue because his role in NPS history is well known, as is the fact that his son, John A. Townsley, followed him into the NPS and had a distinguished career of his own. A basic internet search revealed that when the younger Townsley was awarded a Puglsey Medal in 1982, it was noted that, “Throughout his NPS career, John Townsley wore with great pride the distinctive leather NPS hatband of his father—one of the handful issued to those pioneers in NPS leadership.” Suddenly, the idea that Albright’s hatband was one-of-a-kind was in doubt. Arguably, the idea that Albright’s hatband was the 1928 prototype also seemed less likely if two (or more) were made.
Could Albright and Townsely have had the same distinctive NPS hatband? Like the hatbands, the number of questions was growing. Did Townsley have one made to give to Albright while keeping one for himself? Where did the idea that they were given to “pioneers in NPS leadership” come from? How many were made? Who decided who received them? Might others survive?
Although Townsley died before an oral history could be done with him, the NPS History Collection includes an interview with his son John, born at Yosemite in 1927. Sitting in a box less than 30 feet away from the cabinet housing Albright’s hatband in the NPS History Collection storage area, Townsley’s oral history transcript has been used for other research but never looked at for history of the hatband—because until the letter was found at Yosemite, his father’s association with the hatband was unknown. What are the odds that John Townsley talked about it? As it turns out, they odds were excellent.
Townsley acknowledged in his March 15, 1973, interview that “all of my recollections about my father are prior to the time I was 13 years old or else they’re by conversation with other people since then.” With that disclaimer, he recalled,
My dad was interested in the [NPS] uniform business. He went to Merced [California] with a design that he made and had a man make 10 hatbands and those 10 hatbands had sequoia cones on them and a mountain lion. Those were the first ten hatbands that were used in the NPS.
These recollections clarify several aspects of the hatband’s history. Forest Townsley designed them, but Visalia Stock and Saddle Company made them. Although John Townsley had the Merced location wrong, his information is more consistent with maker’s stamp than Albright’s memory that Townsley made them himself. His description of the hatband having sequoia cones and a mountain lion makes it clear that he is talking about the same hatband design. He was also very specific that 10 were made and that they were the first used in the NPS, suggesting official authorization even if they weren't part of the 1920 uniform regulations. Unfortunately, the big question left unanswered is when Forest Townsley had them made. Was it 1920, 1928, or maybe 1916 when he became chief ranger at Yosemite?
John Townsley went on to say,
I had one of them and after I transferred to Washington one time, I got pretty nostalgic, and I put it on a hat that I was wearing to and from work. One morning when I was late coming [to the Department of the Interior], I took the hat off and was jogging along towards work. When I got there the hatband was gone. I took about three mornings of annual leave [to] put up a sign where I thought I might have lost it and talked to people, but never got a trace of it. I really felt badly about that. Some years later, Sam King, an early ranger in Yosemite, gave me his old ranger hat that has one of those hatbands on it. I think Duane Jacobs has one. There are several others around. But to that extent our family had a little bit of input into the [NPS] uniform business.
The question about other surviving hatbands—at least as of the early 1970s—can now be answered in the affirmative. It is still unclear, however, if the "uniform business" refers to the 1920 uniform, the 1928 hatband discussion, or something else.
Interestingly, the two additional hatbands cited by John Townsley were in the hands of former Yosemite rangers. King was a Yosemite ranger from 1931 until 1948 and Jacobs from 1932 to 1942 (and later from 1946 to 1953). Both began in the NPS after the official hatband was approved and would have worn that version with their uniforms. Townsley’s recollection strongly suggests that at least some of the 10 hatbands passed to the next generation of Yosemite rangers, rather than to “pioneers of NPS leadership.” Could 10 have been the number of permanent rangers on Chief Ranger Townsley's staff when he ordered them? Did he order them for use at Yosemite but brought one to the 1928 conference as an example, leaving it with Albright?
The replacement hatband King gave John Townsley remains with the Townsley family. Photographs of it provided by the family document its similarity to the Albright hatband in the NPS History Collection. Three differences are apparent: the leather is a dark brown, the detailing of the sequoia cones near the ring fasterners is missing, and the hatband is tied differently.
The photographs of the Townsley hat provide a strong visual against which to reanalyze photographs from the 1920s. A photograph from the first chief naturalists' conference, held in 1929, was published in National Park Service Uniforms: Ironing Out the Wrinkles 1920-1932. Workman recognized that Charles Albert "Bert" Harwell, one of three men in the photograph, was "sporting a tooled leather [hatband] similar in configuration to that later adopted by the Service." Without recognizing that Albright's hatband was part of a larger set, and without the benefit of photographs of the hat in the Townsley family collection, Workman didn't recognize the significance of Harwell's hatband. It's interesting to note that Harwell was new to the NPS in 1929 and a park naturalist (rather than a ranger) but he was given one of the hatbands.
The Townsley family also provided a photograph of Forest Townsley wearing what appears to be this style of hatband and dated December 20, 1929. Photographs of Albright, Townsley, and Harwell with the same hatband style in 1929 lead us towards the late 1920s date for the design, rather than the earlier part of that decade. However, more information is needed for a definitive answer. If the 1929 date is accurate, however, there were more than seven other rangers at Yosemite that year. Even assuming that only permanent rangers wore the hatband, it could suggest more than 10 were made. Rangers such as Charles F. Adair, Henry A. Skelton, John H. Wegner, Billy Nelson, Ernest R. Reed, John W. Bingaman, Bert Sault, Homer B. Hoyt, Gustav Eastman, Carl Danner, Otto M. Brown, Wilfred K. “Bill” Merrill, Arthur Holmes, Ralph Anderson, Vernon Lowry, Oscar Irwin, Emil Ernst, and J. Barton Hershler worked at the park in 1929. Of course, it's possible that only rangers in a specific district in the park or with specific duties were given one of the 10 hatbands. Additional research into photographs of these men in NPS or other collections might reveal more information.
Our research continues, and this article will be updated as new information becomes available and until the full history of these hatbands is understood. As of August 2023 none of the hats in the Yosemite or Yellowstone national park museum collections include this type of hatband. At least eight of them—including Forest Townsley's lost hatband, the one worn by Harwell in 1929, and the one Duane Jacobs had in the 1970s—may be out there somewhere. If you have any information about them, please contact the NPS History Collection archivist.
Sources:
--. (1943, August 12). “Yosemite Chief Ranger Dies of Heart Attack.” The Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto, California), p. 10.--. (1943, August 12). “Yosemite Chief Ranger Succumbs.” The Fresno Bee (Fresno, California), pp. 1, 17.
--. (1982, September 21). “Yellowstone Park Chief Dies of Cancer at Age 55.” The Missoulian (Missoula, Montana), p. 2.
--. (undated). “John A. Townsley.” Accessed July 19, 2023, at https://aapra.org/Awards/Pugsley-Medal/Recipient-Biography/Id/75
Albright, Horace M. as told to Robert Cahn. (1985). The Birth of the National Park Service The Founding Years, 1913-1933. Howe Brothers: Chicago.
Bingaman, John A. (1961). Guardians of the Yosemite. Accessed July 19, 2023, at https://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/guardians_of_the_yosemite/history.html
Goza, Samantha. (2023, August 2). Pers. Comm. with Nancy Russell, archivist of the NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.
Hopkins, Gail. (2023, July 31). Pers. Comm. with Nancy Russell, archivist of the NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.
National Park Service. (2022, June 20). “Forest Townsley.” Accessed July 19, 2023, at https://www.nps.gov/chic/learn/historyculture/forest-townsley.htm
Sargent, Shirley. (1998). Protecting Paradise: Yosemite Rangers 1898-1960. Ponderosa Press: Yosemite, California.
Townsley, John A. (1973, March 15). Oral History Interview by S. Herbert Evison. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1817), NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.
Townsley, Joseph. (2023, July 20). Pers. comm. with Nancy Russell, archivist at the NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.
Watson, Miriam. (2023, August 9). Pers. Comm. with Nancy Russell, archivist of the NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.
Workman, R. Bryce (1991). National Park Service Uniforms: Badges and Insignia 1894-1991. NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.
Workman, R. Bryce (1995). National Park Service Uniforms: Ironing Out the Wrinkles 1920-1932. NPS History Collection, Harpers Ferry, WV.