See, the whole reason George (nicknamed ‘Stormy’ after his infamous temper) even became a railroad engineer is because of Ida. When the pair started seriously dating, Ida’s father insisted she couldn’t wed an amateur baseball player, so George got himself a “proper” job working for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and with that, they were hitched.
After some time working outdoors, he began to realize there wasn’t a single hat out there that fit the bill for him and his coworkers— either they disappeared with the wind or weren’t keeping their ears and everything in between warm enough. Wearied of losing so many lids, George went home and sought Ida’s help in making something that he could finally rely on.
Taking its blueprint from a standard baseball cap, the rendition that the pair cooked up would be stitched from six panels with a higher crown and a pull-down ear-band that tied at the front, anchoring the headpiece and keeping its wearer cozy at the same time.
The very first Stormy Kromer proved to be a success, and with George no longer losing his head over losing his hat, his colleagues in Kaukauna were soon lining up to have their own made, too. Before long, engineers from all over the region were donning the cap, and it grew to be not only a useful item for the outdoors but a symbol of culture and community. “It became the hat and the symbol of the railroad people of the Northwest,” the brand explains. Indeed, even the construction of the cap helped to coin a nickname for local workers (they became known as the ‘six-pointers’) and it provided an easy means of recognizing each other when they were out of the state.
With all this success, you’ll hardly be surprised to learn that the demand for Ida’s reliable invention increased substantially, and in 1919, the duo moved production to a North Broadway workshop in Milwaukee, where they employed a small group of staff to keep things ticking over.