The "Stormy Kromer" story is really good marketing.

(The whole truth? I don't rightly know, but, I enjoy a good legend and a bit of blarney).

The 'oldtimers', I knew, just called them a "railroader's cap".

I am a 'Troll'. My parents, grandparents, and 3/4ths of my great-grandparents were born or lived, significant parts of their lives, in the upper peninsula "Copper Country".

Northern Michigan is quite the melting pot of languages, cultures, and nationalities.

The 'yoopers' have a lot of regional names for things. They know how to survive serious winter and adopted things that worked!

Some examples, I grew up with, that meant nothing to my 'troll' friends:

Swampers = Boots with rubber bottom, laced leather upper, and sometimes a felt liner, (like L.L. Bean's).

Choppers = Double-mittens that have a leather outer-mitten and a wool inner-mitten.

Toque = A French name for a wool "watch cap", sometimes very stylized. It goes back to ancient times. It can be knitted or made from whole cloth.

Canadians pronounce it "Took", my family pronounced it "Chook", (rhymes with 'cook').

As a kid, when I headed out the door in winter to do my paper-route, my mother would yell: "Be carefull. Do you have your Chook and Choppers"?!!

Knute, you are right about the 'Brotherhood of Hats'. There are motorcycle guys, car and truck guys, gun guys, and there are hat guys!

Most of these fraternities probably overlap.