Lindenberg Timeline

1150 Patacho and Sigibert, two important aristocrats, gave estates in "Lintiberc" to the monastery of St. Gallen.

1257 The existence of the parish of Lindenberg is mentioned in a tax register of the Konstanz dioceses.

1353 The parish of Lindenberg has 36 rural estates.

1525 At the time of the farmer war, Lindenberg has 71 households or barnyards.

1570 Austria acquires the rule of Altenburg and consequently the village of Lindenberg.

1600 At this time Lindenberg manufactures straw hats for its own use.

1604 Lindenberg has 162 houses with approximately 800 inhabitants including the outlying villages.

1617 For the first time the Lindenberger horse dealers Jakob Bildstein, Jakob Mauch, and Magnus Stiefenhofer are mentioned in documents. They sell 13 horses to Milan. Historical tradition indicates that the Lindenberger horse dealers brought home knowledge of straw twisting and hat sewing from Italy.

1618-1648 The Swedes attack three times during the Thirty Years War. Plundering, arson, and the plague decimate the population.

1656 Lindenberg straw hats are sold through peddling and at markets.

1740 The village of Lindenberg again has 500 inhabitants.

1748 Abolition of the Austrian lords, including those in the juristic area of Altenburg.

1755 Production and selling of straw hats are organized for the first time.

1770 –1771 By a nationally ordered consolidation of farmland, 56 barnyards are seized. This formed today's neighborhood divisions and developed predominant dairy farming.

1784 Emperor Josef II grants the village of Lindenberg the right to hold three cattle markets annually.

1800 Lindenberg has 1,118 inhabitants.

1805 Lindenberg is designated for the first time as Bavarian by the Pressburger Peace agreement, and in 1808 is known as a market town.

1815 Establishment of the Wagner Hat Company. The members of over 300 families are busy working at home producing straw hats. The annual production amounts to about 56,000 pieces.

1819 The “Florentine Hats” of the Lindenberg hat makers Johann Aurel Stiefenhofer and Josef Wagner are distinguished at an industry exhibition in Augsburg as the finest and most beautiful work.

1820 Beginning of production of the so-called binsen – or bound hats. They are sold as far as North America. Numerous hat companies are established in the period from 1820 – 1914

1829 King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his wife, Therese, visit the Allgaeu. The queen is presented with a basket twisted out of finest Florentine straw filled with flowers made out of straw.

1830 Queen Therese receives a Florentine hat in the value of 300 guldens, sewn by Genoveva Schmid. Agathe Huber worked two years twisting the 300 Ellen long fine straw made out of 13 separate blades (an Ellen is the distance from one’s hand to the elbow). For her efforts she received a paycheck of around 60 gulden.

1836 Award of the first coat of arms to the market of Lindenberg.

1843 Straw hat production and the straw hat market begin to decline. The Lindenberger women spend more time and effort twisting straw. The sewing market flourishes. With the production of straw cords, called Drohdel, on homemade Drohdel-machines, the Lindenberg citizens earn good money for some years. One or more such devices stand in nearly every Lindenberg living room at this time.

1851 Lindenberg has 1,251 inhabitants.

1852 Award of a “Diploma First Class” for Lindenberg straw hats during the Augsburger industry show.

1853 A railroad line opens connecting Munich to Lindau, which facilitates the important dispatch of the Lindenberg hats.

1862 Establishment of a post office route from Scheidegg to Lindenberg to Roethenbach.

1868 For the last time a horse transport from Lindenberg goes on the country roads over the alps to northern Italy. For centuries up until this year, Lindenberger horse dealers brought many thousands of riders and carriage horses from Northern Germany and led them on trusted routes across Augsburg, Lindenberg, and Spluegen or through the Brennerpass to upper Italy. Lindenberger horse handlers had business addresses in Milan, Rome, and Naples.

1869 Introduction of the first hydraulic hat press. The traditional ironing establisments for making straw hats still are used until 1879.

1870 The company of Aurel Huber opens the first establishment for the production of straw hats not connected to a private home. From this manufacturing establishment the first hat factory is opened.

1873 Straw hat sewing machines are used for the first time during straw hat production. The hat is sewn over a wire form, beginning with the edge.

1874 Establishment of a telegraph station in Lindenberg. For the first time Manufacturer Aurel Huber goes with samples on a journey to wholesalers in Munich, Ulm, and Strasbourg. Thus begins hat production by order.

1878 Great development of the Lindenberg straw hat industry. Protective tax for the German hat.

1880 In addition to processing the preferred Italian straw, now East Asian straw is converted to the production of straw hats in larger quantities.

1885 Lindenberg has 23 large and small straw hat manufacturers and 13 straw hat dealers.

1887 Improved customs laws make a further boom of the Lindenberg hat industry possible.

1889 Introduction of the column press. They already used high pressure steam generating units for the operation of the hat presses and the pulling stands as well as for the heating of the entire company rooms since 1886.

1890 The hat factory of Ottmar Reich builds its own dyeing factory and bleach plant. In Lindenberg and surrounding areas there are over 34 straw hat manufacturers.

1893 Introduction of the electric current. The first electric lamps burn in houses on Hirschstrasse.

1899 Establishment of the Lindenberg dyeing factory and bleach plant cooperative by 6 straw hat manufacturers and two edging dealers, later there will be a bleach plant corporation.

1900 In western Allgäu, and particularly in Lindenberg, roughly 4 million straw hats are produced annually, on average. They are produced by approximately 34 presses, 1500 sewing machines, 280 workshop workers, and 2800 home-workers.

1901 On October first, the railroad line between Roethenbach, Lindenberg, and Scheidegg is opened. The Bähnle eases congestion caused by the transport of the light but bulky freight. A customs office opens in Lindenberg because of the increasing foreign trade with China, Japan, south and Central America, Madagascar, Java, and the Philippines.

1902 Electric current is introduced into the straw hat factories, first as light, then as power.

1908 Lindenberg becomes a market municipality with an urban condition.

1913 Annual production reaches approximately 8 million straw hats. The city is now center of the German gentleman straw hat industry.

1914 Inauguration of the new city parish church. Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, Lindenberg becomes a city. War production included straw soles, bags, horse hoods, and horse feed bags.

1924 The straw hat industry enters a large crisis. The matelot, a principle product of the domestic straw hat industry, goes out of fashion.

1926 The high point of the gentleman straw hat industry crisis is reached, causing numerous factory shutdowns until 1930.

1928 With the manufacturing of lady felt hats the crisis is overcome. Fashion dictated mainly from Paris requires greater flexibility in the manufacturing of straw and felt hats.

1932 The company Otmar Reich manufactures 12,000 hats in one day.

1939 The Second World War begins, and hat production is paralyzed until 1945. The industry changes itself over to war-important products including tropical helmets for Rommel’s army in North Africa, snow shoes, gas socks for horses, life boats, and other items.

1945 New beginning of the hat production from small stocks leftover from the prewar production.

1946 The company Mayser, Milz & Co. established in their business premises in Lindenberg a hair bobbin manufacturing plant, using restored machines from Mayser's hat factory in Ulm, which had been completely bombed in 1945.

1948 The company Aurel Huber also begins manufacturing hair bobbins with the help of experienced refugees from the German east areas.

1950 First wholesale hat purchase fair in Lindenberg.

1951 Lindenberg becomes seat of the men’s hat advertisement slogan: "By the way, one does not go any longer without a hat."

1953 Introduction of automations to the felt surface processes.

1960 The Lindenberger hat industry begins felt hat production beside the traditional straw - and with the production of hats from the different materials such as leather, Dralon®, and fur.

1970 Hats from sewing bobbins with heat plasticisable yarn are manufactured.

1971 Mayser, Milz & Co. shift the hair bobbin manufacturing to Ulm and begin new finishing methods (Inducon and cord goods) in Lindenberg along with classical hat manufacturing processes.

1975 One unfortunately does go without a hat. The hatless fashion makes it difficult for the industry. Old established hat companies must again stop their production. The hat industry loses its priority position in the Lindenberger economic life. Lindenberg shows the exhibition: "300 years of hat production".

1978 Lindenberg’s oldest hat factory was demolished. With this there are only two hat factories left.