International Hat operated the historical building from 1954 to 1976. It is presently used as a senior and disabled living facility. The company was founded by Isaac Apple on August 17, 1917 as International Harvest Hat Company. The prominent St. Louis families of Apple and Tilles incorporated International Harvest Hat during the turbulence of World War I. The Apple family had previously founded the Apple Hat Company, which was based in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Among the co-founders of International Harvest Hat was George Tilles, Sr., whose sister Hannah, was married to Isaac Apple. However, the elderly Tilles left operational management of the company to his brother-in-law Isaac Apple. The other original minority shareholders at the time of incorporation included Alexander E. Rosenthal, Harry J. Talbot, and John C. Talbot. Rosenthal, who had previously been at the Apple Hat Company, was appointed as the first general manager of International Harvest Hat. However, in 1918, he was arrested in Galveston, Texas on charges of embezzlement for the unauthorized sale of nineteen bales of harvest straw hats. The original business model of the company was commercial hat production of harvest straw hats. On the micro-economic level, St. Louis had become a center of hat manufacturing during the Second Industrial Revolution. In 1900, 129 businesses in St. Louis were producing custom hats for women, with approximately 600 employees in the industry. Within the decade, St. Louis was the fifth largest producer of fur felt hats. International Harvest Hat proposed to do the same thing for straw harvest hats, by ramping up production capacity and challenging the manufacturing centers in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. The timing of market entry was favorable to the company's goals, as the organization was established at the peak decade of the commercial hat apparel market. In 1910, over 42 million hats were produced in the United States, an all-time record for domestic production. On the macroeconomic level, the company was founded at a time of ascendance for the United States. In 1916, the United States economic output, for the first time in history, was greater than that of the British Empire, establishing the United States as the world's largest economic superpower. From World War I to the beginnings of the Great Depression, it was under these economic environmental conditions that the company originally produced a product line of harvest hats. Such hats of the period were a staple of farmers and field hands across the US. By the 1920s, St. Louis replaced New England as the world's dominant manufacturing center for harvest hats.