![\"Historic](\"https:\/\/ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/knoxhatfactory.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt almost looks like a castle, with the yellow brick factory walls fortified to protect the interior, and a corner watchtower to help spot and vanquish invaders.<\/p>\n
But of course this is Brooklyn, and in 1890 when the hat works opened as the world\u2019s largest hat factory, it was just one more manufacturing building in a city filled with companies that made things. <\/p>\n
As companies go, however, Knox Hatworks has a long history in Gotham. \u201cFounded by Irish immigrant Charles Knox, the Knox Hat Company began operations in lower Manhattan, selling beaver hats in a small store he opened in 1838,\u201d states the Brooklyn Public Library<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThrough promotion and word of mouth, the business built an impressive clientele, including Abraham Lincoln, who purchased a new Knox stovepipe right before his 1860 speech at the Cooper Institute.\u201d<\/p>\n After Charles Knox\u2014aka \u201cKnox the Hatter\u201d\u2014 died, his son, Civil War hero Edward<\/a>, became the head of the company. <\/p>\n In the ensuing years, teh original Knox store on Fulton Street burned down. Edward Knox relocated the hat shop to 212 Broadway, then to the posh Fifth Avenue Hotel on 23rd Street.<\/p>\n In the 1880s, he decided Knox should get into the manufacturing business. A letter published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1952<\/a> recalled the factory\u2019s early days. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen this plant first opened, all the men who worked there wore high hats to and from work,\u201d stated the cheeky letter writer. \u201cWhat a time we kids had during snowball weather.\u201d <\/p>\n Knox Hatworks continued production through World War II, but eventually the building was abandoned, according to the Brooklyn Public Library. \u201cIn the mid 1980s developers bought the building and converted it to apartments.\u201d<\/p>\n The Brooklyn Public Library\u2019s post about the factory included a photograph dating to 1905\u2014showing a spectacular clock tower with a mansard roof, now removed.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unfortunate, but at least the developers kept the terra cotta panels at the corner of the building, which gives a little backstory on the building and company that curious passersby love to know. (Though the founding date of the company carved into terra cotta is wrong, per Lost New York City<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n