Our Past Is Present August 30, 2018

August 30, 2018        

            You are reading “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            Today’s story is about Albert More, who was born into the tailoring trade in a matter of speaking. His father and grandfather were both tailors and Albert became an apprentice at age 14. In 1899, when Albert was 20, he married Laura Hontz and after living in Manhattan for a while, they moved to Junction City.  In 1914, Albert opened his own business and in time his skills would earn him national recognition.

            His work was seen by a Mrs. Aubrey Lippincott, wife of an Army officer stationed at Fort Riley.  She noticed a coat Albert had made for Mrs. More and placed an order of one like it for herself.  Later Mrs. Lippincott complained that her husband could not get a properly fitted pair of riding breeches and asked Albert if he could make them.  Not having done so before, he stated that he would try. 

            The result led to another order and from that humble beginning Mr. More’s business grew until more than a thousand pairs of riding breeches were made for cadets who graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point.

            Still others discovered the “More Breeches.”  Some of those were Generals Patton, Truscott, Wainwright, Richardson and the Army Olympic Equestrian Teams, which would wear the breeches in competition all over the world.  Other famous personalities such as designer Oleg Cassini and even a young Ronald Reagan wore the breeches when he was an “inactive reserves cavalry officer” in Iowa in the mid-1930s. 

            After 51 years of tailoring, Albert More turned over his shop to Richard Jones in January of 1947.  Then with the Calvary’s demise at the end of WWII, there was a decrease in the demand for “More’s Breeches.”  More died in 1974 at the age of 95. 

            And… that’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.