By Cheryl Kepes
Photos courtesy Muir family
The story of Muir Embroidery’s rise from a single hat machine to a storefront property and how the small hat business saved the family farm.

A bit of ingenuity mixed with a ton of hard work saved the Muir family farm decades ago. A side hustle the family took on in desperation to keep from losing their cattle and crop operation in Rippey, Iowa, did much more than generate additional income – it flourished into a thriving business.
Muir Embroidery, now owned and operated by Todd and Roxanne Muir, made its mark in the custom hat business. Muir Embroidery’s products have been well-known in the livestock community for almost 50 years. The company’s signature designs include hats, jackets, shirts, chairs and many other products to help livestock producers showcase their operations.
The Muir family derives satisfaction from creating products to help farmers and ranchers advertise their operations. When livestock producers wear clothing or utilize products with their operation’s logo it builds confidence and pride. This is a phenomenon Todd Muir discovered during the early days of the family’s custom hat business.
“Because farmers were wearing their logos, it took them to a new level of professionalism, and they were no longer just a farmer. See, it used to be they would come up to the sales booth and I would ask, ‘What do you do?’ They would reply, ‘I’m just a farmer.’ And our goal is to help get rid of the word just. They are not just a farmer. These people are professional men and women with millions of dollars in assets and they are trying to put food on the table for the rest of the world while making a living,” Todd Muir explained.

Born of Necessity
The business started with Todd’s parents, Dwight and Sue Muir. A nationally imposed ceiling on beef prices, rising corn prices, and other economic pressures thrust the Muir family farm into dire straits in the mid-1970s. The family’s 600-acre farm and feedlot were in jeopardy. The family’s financial problems mounted as the decade progressed.
In 1977, drought struck their area of Iowa forcing many farmers into financial ruin. So much so, many of them could not pay Dwight for the custom corn combining he did for them. “By the time I graduated in 1982, we made the front page of the Des Moines Register with the largest loan in the state of Iowa through FHA. We were $790,000 in,” Todd recalled.
But not all was lost. Dwight and Sue and the rest of the family held on to a thread of hope - a single-head, heat-seal cap machine. It didn’t look like much, but it would be the source for digging them out of debt and keeping the farm afloat.
Hat Business
The Muir family was well versed in the cattle industry. Dwight and Sue, along with their four children; Teela, Terry, Todd, and Julie, spent years fitting, showing, and marketing cattle throughout the country. While selling and showcasing cattle in Louisville in 1975, Dwight purchased five hats with the family farm name in flocked letters on the front. Months later, when he proudly wore the cap to the National Western Stock Show (NWSS) in Denver, Colo., he was overwhelmed by the response. Fellow livestock producers greeted him by his farm name, complimented the hat, and thus an idea was born.
The following year, Dwight and some of the Muir kids loaded up cattle to showcase and sell in Louisville. But they returned with much more – Dwight purchased the supplies needed to start a hat business. He came home with a hat machine, 36 caps in five colors, and three trays of letters in red, royal blue, and black.
“He brings in this little single-headed hat press, these letters, and hats and puts them on the dining room table. And Mom said, ‘Dwight, what are we going to do with this?’ He said, ‘You’re going to make hats. She went from farm wife and raising kids to a professional hatmaker in 0.3 seconds,” Todd reminisced with a chuckle.

One Step at a Time
The Muir family didn’t know the first thing about making custom printed hats, but they did know a lot about perseverance. Sue had no instructional manual, no internet searches to rely on, no videos to guide her. She simply jumped in and started practicing. In the meantime, Dwight began to set up accounts with hat companies to get a product line up and running. By the time the 1976 Iowa Beef Expo rolled around, the Muirs were ready to offer custom printed caps.
The little hat machine soon started earning its keep. Farmers and ranchers lined up at state fairs, beef expos, and national cattle competitions to buy custom merchandise. Dwight, Sue, and Todd would work the booth making hats on the spot. “We would work 14, 16, 18-hour days trying to get hats made to give to everybody the next day,” Todd said.
The hat business gained enough momentum to help the family through their tough financial times in the late-1970s and early-1980s. “By then, that little hat machine is what helped get us to where we could feed the family and pay our heat bills and everything. So, that’s how we survived there for a while,” Todd recalled.
The business grew to the point that the Muirs started shipping orders to customers. The family added a room to their farmhouse to house all the inventory and equipment.
Expanding to Embroidery
Todd and Roxanne’s responsibility with the business increased as he stepped into adulthood. In 1987, Todd took out a loan to buy the company’s first embroidery machine. The massive machine possessed the capability to embroider four items at the same time.
Muir Embroidery continued to take its operation on the road. The Muir family and a crew of employees loaded up their equipment and products and traveled to state fairs, beef expos, national cattle shows, cattle sales, and other large-scale events across the country. The popularity and demand for their products soared.

Brick and Mortar
The Muirs embarked on another business first in 2004. Todd and Roxanne and their children purchased the company from Dwight and Sue and moved Muir Embroidery off the farm to a building in nearby Jefferson, Iowa. The building provided the business with more space, a storefront, and a showroom.
Todd’s wife, Roxanne, has played an integral role in the success of the business through the years. She’s spent countless hours operating the embroidery machines. “She is so efficient, she gets more done accidentally than I do on purpose,” Todd shared.
Muir Embroidery currently carries an inventory of 13,000 hats as well as 4,000 coats and shirts. The company offers many other products including chairs and footwear. The business operates with multiple single-head embroidery machines and a heat transfer machine. The Muirs ship orders to customers all over the world.
The Muirs take their product line on the road to several major livestock shows and expos each year, that generates more than enough orders to keep the family busy without a website and online orders. These days Todd and Roxanne run the business with the help of their daughter, Bridget, and her husband, Ian. Todd and Roxanne’s son, Tyler, and his wife, Natasha, are also involved with the operation. Todd’s favorite assistants are his grandkids, Kenzie and Cody.

Dream Realized
After close to five decades in the hat making business, the Muir family looks back with deep satisfaction. “The biggest thing is, Dad was bound and determined that they weren’t going to take the farm away from him and somehow, he got it done. He had some buddies who threw in the towel and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ The drive of the whole family was to try to save our 600 acres, and we did it,” Todd said.
Muir Embroidery did much more than accomplish its original goal. Due to the heart and hard work of the Muirs, they created a business that helped pull them out of an economic crisis, kept the farm in the family, and created new opportunities for current and future generations of the Muir family. They achieved all of that while making thousands of livestock producers feel especially proud to sport a hat or coat or tee-shirt or whatever the product may be with their personal farm logo perfectly displayed.
Upon reflecting on their journey, members of the Muir family say their hearts are filled with gratitude for everyone who has been a part of their business venture. Todd said the Muir Embroidery team summed up their appreciation this way, “Hats off to an incredible story of a little red machine and years filled with great customers and friendships. Thank you for almost 50 years of support!”

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