The campaign hat, with a wide brim and high crown pinched at the corners, originated in the American West in the 1840s and was adopted by the US Army in the 1870s. It is worn by various groups, including park rangers, state troopers, and the Boy Scouts, and is sometimes called a Smokey Bear hat. The hat’s symmetrical look of four divisions, called Montana Peak, was created after soldiers added folds to let rainwater run off.
A campaign hat is a style of hat featuring a wide brim and a high crown pinched at the corners, to create four symmetrical divisions. These can often be seen on mock sergeants, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Boy Scouts, state troopers, and the fictional icon Smokey the Bear. The hat is not to be confused with a field cap, which is a soft cloth wedge style worn by military personnel around the world.
The campaign hat first appeared in the 1840s. US Army troops picked up the style from civilians while in the American West. They brought the style with them, and it was adopted for official use in Army equipment in the early 1870s. At the time, a black felt version was the only type of campaign hat approved for military use.
When the military began wearing the style, there was only one crease on the crown of the hat. After it was discovered that the single fold tended to trap rainwater, soldiers used to press more folds into the hat to let the water run off. This is how the symmetrical look of four divisions, called Montana Peak, was created. During the World War II era, the United States Army further adapted the hat by adding various colored cords around the crown denoting rank.
This style of hat is also worn by park rangers in local and regional parks, as well as US National Parks. This likely evolved because national park rangers were originally cavalrymen and as such wore a field hat. In turn, when the United States Forest Service debuted its mascot, Smokey the Bear, on August 9, 1944, they gave him part of their uniform: the campaign hat. Due to Smokey’s popularity and fame, the style is occasionally called a Smokey Bear hat.
The Boy Scouts of America also wear the hat as part of their uniforms. It was worn by the men who founded the scouting movement, Robert Baden Powell and Frederick Russell Burnham. Baden Powell wrote a manual called Scouting for Boys and included a sketch of the ideal scouting uniform, which included a campaign hat. It has been part of the official Boy Scout uniform ever since.
This type of hat is often referred to as a Stetson, and was actually made by the John B. Stetson company. However, a Stetson campaign hat and the Montana peak are different, and should not be mentioned interchangeably. Campaign hats are also sometimes called lemon squeezers because the spout resembles the kitchen device used to squeeze citrus.
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