Edward Joseph Hamilton arrived in Houston in 1883 at twenty-one and opened a menswear shop that went through two name changes (Hamilton and Scurry, then Hamilton and Mason) before settling on Hamilton Bros. in 1887, once five of his six younger brothers had joined as co-owners. What started as hats, caps and general furnishings shifted toward custom-made shirts, which became the core of the business and stayed there. The company spent its first 66 years in the Rice Hotel block on Main Street before moving to a purpose-built workshop on Richmond Avenue in 1975, and remains family-run today, four generations after Edward founded it.