It might be too hot out to think about woolen hats, but a quirky Upper Peninsula hat company began selling this week a “limited-edition Original Stormy Kromer Cap” to memorialize the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
In one day, the company said, it sold more than half of the 500-something caps.
Some of the proceeds — $20, a third of the retail price — from each cap, the company said, will be donated to Friends of the Fitz, a nonprofit Wisconsin group seeking to raise money to purchase a marker noting where the ship departed on its ill-fated voyage.
The entire crew of 29 was lost.
The cap is one of many products — and events, such as an upcoming 400-mile-plus swim this month — leading up to the anniversary date and designed to remember the terrible shipping tragedy and lives of the sailors.
The company’s senior sales manager, Lauren Doubrava, told the Free Press that the Friends of the Fitz proposed the idea. Stormy Kromer, she added, aims to assist the nonprofit raise money, not profit off tragedy.
The fitted caps are only available online or at the factory store in Ironwood.
The Great Lakes freighter sank — one of the largest on Lake Superior ever to do so — during a violent November storm in 1975 while carrying Minnesota ore. The ship’s last voyage was from Superior, Wisconsin, and bound for Detroit.
A Newsweek article — which published haunting details about the disaster, now one of the best-known in Great Lakes shipping — inspired singer Gordon Lightfoot to write the hit ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
The sinking — and the reporting of it — led to safety requirements.
The special cap, known as a Stormy Kromer, is on sale until it runs out.
The wool-nylon blend hat with a flannel lining features a dark blue and black check pattern and a custom leather patch in honor of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It is cut and sewn in America, and has a lifetime warranty.
The cap, which is peculiar to the Midwest, has flaps to cover your ears and was named after George “Stormy” Kromer. The semiprofessional baseball player was from Kaukauna, Wisconsin, and worked as a railroad engineer.
Kromer, the story goes, lost a lot of hats while working on trains and in 1903, asked his wife to make him one that would stay on. She adapted a ballcap by adding the ear flaps. Traditionally, the caps are red and black plaid or gray.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 orfwitsil@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Upper Peninsula hat maker offers limited-edition Stormy Kromer honoring Edmund Fitzgerald
Reporting by Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
