Travis Hamblen carries his family’s legacy with him every day. It’s the foundation for Hamblen Hats, and it’s part of the company’s logo. From loving cowboy hats as a youngster his passion for building and repairing them, his passion continues.
(PHOTO BY IN THE WILD WONDER PHOTOGRAPHY)

 

Hamblen Hats’ Flying H stands for hope, heritage and history

AULT, Colo. – It’s the brand that smiles back, but there’s more to the Hamblen Hats logo than meets the eye.

“That H stands for hope, heritage and history, and then the Flying H is the hard work part of it,” said Travis Hamblen, the company’s founder and owner. “I get to tell everybody that when I put it on their hats.”

The foundation for that mindset is deeply rooted not only in the company but in Hamblen himself. It’s something that was passed on to him from the generations that came before. With the logo, he is honoring his late-grandfather, Sam Hamblen, and his parents, Cliff and Carol Hamblen.

“When we first started, I reached out to Matt Charboneau, who has done graphic designs for four generations of us,” Travis Hamblen said. “I told him I wanted to build an iconic logo that doesn’t scream hats, like the Nike swoosh logo, where when somebody sees it, they recognize, ‘Just Do It!’ as a brand.”

Charboneau nailed it. So has Hamblen, still holding onto his family birthright and passing it along to his sons, Braxton, 18, and Kason, 16.

“I can’t say enough about my Grandpa Sam’s legacy,” Hamblen said. “Part of what got me into hats was Grandpa Sam.”

That story goes back to when Hamblen was about the age of his sons. Situations arose, and he opted to drop out of high school. He was working full time and planning to take over the family business, but his grandfather intervened.

“Grandpa says, ‘Listen, I dropped out of school at 13 when my dad died, and that was one of the things that I never finished in my life,’ ” Hamblen recalled. “He said, ‘I quit because I had to, and I regret it every day. If you go back to school, I’ll buy you the best hat I can find.’

“He went and bought me a 200X felt hat when I graduated high school. That was my first good hat and where everything started. I realized that hats are my love language.”

It’s been a love affair ever since. The passion derived from that moment eventually guided Hamblen to create his hat company. He had been shaping hats since age 13, taking his own and adjusting or fixing them over a tea kettle’s steam.

“I realized I really like shaping hats, and I’m good at this,” he said.

That’s what happens when there’s affection for what one’s doing. After attending an event in Texas and being around hat-makers and cowboys, he opted to build the brand. Hamblen Hats began in a 24-foot trailer with a showroom in the front and hats in the back.

“My grandpa and my family helped me remodel that trailer into a little, mobile showroom,” Hamblen said. “This all started in the fall of 2019 and into the winter of 2020.”

It didn’t take long before he opened a “brick-and-mortar” store in Ault, a community of about 3,000 in north-central Colorado. Even though Grandpa Sam wasn’t in the best of health, he made it to his grandson’s opening, despite the fact that the date coincided with a family member’s first birthday.

“I didn’t plan things very well, and everybody was at that party,” Hamblen said. “Later on that evening, my grandpa showed up, and I got to introduce everybody to my Grandpa Sam. It was important to me because of the morals and ethics of Grandpa Sam’s story.

“I can’t say enough about Grandpa Sam’s legacy.”

It’s been a deciding factor into what Travis Hamblen has become and why he takes such pride in his work. Just three months after the grand opening, he left his shop in a rush, trying to get to his grandfather’s side at the hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado.

“I dropped everything and drove like a banshee,” he said. “I got to hold my grandpa’s hand and pray with him and thank him for everything that he taught me throughout my life.

“I got to have the closure that I’d never had before with something like that.”

Grandpa Sam’s lessons continue daily. It’s what drives Hamblen to not only create but to innovate. The Flying H on every Hamblen Hat stands for everything he holds dear while also recognizing the legacy that was handed to him by those he has loved the most.