This cache placement is part of the Garland History GeoTour. Should you wish to download the GeoTour passport to earn our beautiful GeoCoin, you can find the GeoTour page here. The log will contain a secret word which you must enter on your passport in the appropriate slot.
Be sure to log your "Will Attend" for the kickoff party of Garland GeoTour 2.0!
Just because you’re a modern-day Texan doesn’t mean you shouldn’t own at least one cowboy hat. Resistol is the world’s biggest straw, felt, leather, and cloth hat manufacturer and has been based here in Garland since 1938, then named 
Byer-Rolnick. Swing by the outlet store for a Gus- or Cattleman-style piece, and pair it with some boots while you’re at it.
Hats keep you warm in winter and cool in summer, protect your eyes from glare and your head from wind and water. Historically, a hat revealed the wearers’ status. Hat Talk said it best: “Kings wore crowns of gold, a fool wore a motley of bells and everyone else in between used their hats to establish their spot in the pecking order.”
People have worn hats as we know them today since ancient Greece. Hats were the most prominent article of clothing on a man’s body, worn religiously between the end of the Wars of the Roses and the start of the Vietnam War. However, the industry began actively fighting the decline of hat-wearing in the 1920s. This gradual downsizing led to the eventual amalgamation or closing of almost all the original hat labels in the United States. For more than 100 years, through the 19th century, hat factories were as large as small towns—and serviced their employees in like manner. The 20th century saw these complexes absorbed and discarded; forced to tear down their buildings and sell equipment. Of course, hat-wearing isn’t dead. And neither is the hat-making industry. Currently, there are three hat manufacturers with international reach producing right here in Garland, Texas. The story of these manufacturing companies couldn’t be told without Harry Rolnick, William C. Cook and John Milano.
Harry Rolnick was born April 12, 1900, and grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. He and his family moved to Houston in the early 1900s and then to Dallas. In 1917 he began working in his parents’ hat renovation shop and in 1922 opened “Harry’s Hat Shop.” Harry Rolnick was born to be in the world of fashion and was propelled down the path of success after meeting Ed Byer, a successful entrepreneur and millionaire. Their company, Byer-Rolnick Hat Company, would become that largest men’s hat manufacturer in the country due, in part, to Rolnick’s three greatest innovations. First, the Resistol Hat, constructed with a trademark interior leather band that allows for expansion and “resists” confining contact with the head. Second was the patented Kitten Finish, which gave a more luxurious feel to felt hats compared to those produced by conventional processing. Finally, Byer-Rolnick’s main plant in Garland became the first hat-finishing plant to establish “straight line” production (think of Ford’s famous factory assembly lines).
Harry became a fashion industry icon and would regularly call on Hollywood legends such as Clark Gable, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Ladd, John Wayne and Henry Ford, just to name a few. US Presidents from Truman to Reagan also received calls from Harry to ensure they were all wearing both western and dress-style Resistols.