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Famous before the movie

Rockmount Ranch Wear gained attention after one of its shirts, worn in the film Brokeback Mountain, sold for $101,100 at auction. But the company, and its active, 105-year-old CEO, are legendary in the world of Western wear.

By MIM SWARTZ
Published March 28, 2006

DENVER - Walk into Rockmount Ranch Wear Manufacturing Co. any weekday morning and you'll likely find a living legend behind the second desk on your left, papers scattered atop the battered wooden surface and a computer in front of him, an electric typewriter behind.

Jack A. Weil - who turns 105 today - will be wearing a bolo tie and one of his company's signature Western shirts. Weil, who founded Rockmount in 1946, is said to have introduced the first Western shirts with snap buttons - they could break away if the shirt got caught during ranch chores - and also to have made the first commercially produced bolo ties.

His signature shirt is said to have been favored by movie stars from Clark Gable and Ronald Reagan to Tom Hanks and James Caan, and by singers from Elvis Presley and Alan Jackson to Don Henley and Bruce Springsteen. But the shirt was designed for hardworking cowhands and mechanics, and one of the shirts is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

A $55 Rockmount shirt featured in the Hollywood hit Brokeback Mountain recently sold on eBay for an amazing $101,100 in a charity promotion.

Manufactured in the United States, the shirts are sold internationally; the company Web site includes a catalog of the apparel line as well as photos of celebrity clients in their Rockmounts.

Believed to be the oldest working CEO in America, if not the world, "Papa Jack" Weil is more than some prop like the other Western paraphernalia in the downtown Denver store and in its museum.

For instance, grandson Steve Weil, 48, a vice president of the company along with his father, Jack B. Weil, still turns to "Papa Jack" for advice.

"He is a pragmatist in the extreme," Steve Weil says of his grandfather. "There is nobody better I can go to for (answers to) the hard questions. He brings integrity and consistent ethics that are sadly lacking elsewhere."

Steve Weil says his grandfather brought computers to the company - way back in the 1960s - and has been a part of every technological change since. "He is Windows-literate," he adds, referring to the computer operating system.

Asked if he uses the computer at his desk, Papa Jack, blue eyes peering through wire-rimmed glasses, answers, "What the hell would I do without it?"

Later he shows his quick wit when a customer asks, "How do you feel today?"

"With my fingers," responds Papa Jack.

Weil's wife, Beatrice, to whom he was married 64 years, died in 1990 at age 89. She always said she felt as if Rockmount Ranch Wear was her husband's mistress, Steve Weil recalls. And who could blame her? Papa Jack is a workaholic who was putting in eight- to 10-hour days up until his 90s.

He has gradually reduced his workweek but still puts in long days.

Papa Jack drove an automobile until recently. Now, the nurse who fixes his dinner and stays overnight in his home drives Papa Jack to the office every morning.

It is obvious that a large part of Papa Jack's purpose in life is helping to run Rockmount Ranch Wear.

"People ask me, 'Why the hell are you working?' Well, you have to have something to do," he said, before excusing himself to take a call on line 3.

Retired Denver Post travel editor Mim Swartz lives in Golden, Colo.

[Last modified March 28, 2006, 08:59:48]