[Deathwatch] Jack A. Weil, western wear maker and oldest CEO, 107

[Deathwatch Central]

Denver Western wear maker Jack Weil dies at 107

The Associated Press

Thu, Aug 14

Jack A. Weil, founder of the Rockmount Ranch Wear company whose
snap-buttoned Western shirts became popular with movie stars and rock
icons, has died. He was 107.

Weil died Wednesday at home, said Steve Weil, his grandson, who is the
current president of the business his grandfather started in downtown
Denver in 1946.

Steve Weil said his grandfather was the first to design Western shirts
with snap buttons and also created pockets with jagged,
sawtooth-pattern flaps. The snaps are often topped with real or
synthetic mother of pearl.

"I learned fast you can't sell to cowboys; they have no money," the
elder Weil said in a 2001 Associated Press interview. "You have to
appeal to the cowboy in everyone and sell to them."

Weil's shirts have been worn in movies by Elvis Presley, Clark Gable
(in his last film, "The Misfits") and Heath Ledger ("Brokeback
Mountain.") Bob Dylan, John Fogerty and Eric Clapton also have sported
the shirts.

In a 2004 Associated Press story on the company, blues and rock veteran
Al Kooper said he had ordered shirts from Rockmount that week. "One of
the biggest impressions on me is Elvis Presley. He wore Rockmount
shirts," Kooper said.

Rockmount designed shirts for Colorado's House delegation for the
Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month.

The price of a shirt has gone from about $2 in the 1940s to $60 and up
today, mostly because the Weils kept manufacturing operations in the
United States.

"I never wanted to be the richest man in the cemetery," he told his
grandson.

Jack Weil remained chief executive officer of Rockmount and went to
work daily until a few days before his death, his grandson said. He was
believed to be the oldest CEO in the world.

Born in Evansville, Ind., in 1901, Weil learned apparel manufacturing
while working at an overalls factory during World War I. He later was a
salesman in Denver, and first got into the Western field by helping a
friend sell cowboy hats.

Rockmount was a wholesale-only business for its first 55 years but
opened a retail outlet after Denver lost many of its mainstay stores,
his grandson said.

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary