My wife and I started Saltgrain Co. because we wanted a hat we were proud to wear: real hide, hand-stitched, built in Chelsea, Alabama, by people who care about the final product.
The name draws on three ideas. Salt of the earth, for character. Grain, for provision and for the hide itself. And salt water, for when the 331 bridge opens onto the bay and you feel the cares of the day slip away.
The heron on the patch is named Harry. The mark comes from a photograph my wife Ashley took: a great blue heron standing at the edge of still water, neck folded back into its long S, a stalk of grain held crosswise in its bill. Herons like him wade the shallows all along this coast, from the Choctawhatchee flats out to the Gulf.
We named him for how he works. A heron doesn't rush. It stands as long as the water asks, watching, and then moves fast when it counts. Patient, focused when it matters, never anxious: that temperament is the closest thing Saltgrain Co. has to a mission statement.
