The straw hat trade became more clearly defined, and more intensive. But it was not until 1835, with the arrival of Manuel Alfaro, that it made a breakthrough in other countries. When he disembarked in Guayaquil, this audacious Spanish entrepreneur decided to stay and make his fortune in Ecuador. He did not take long to spot a suitable line of business. Having settled down in the heart of Montecristi, the little town on the hill caressed by the ocean breezes, he turned to the straw hat trade with a single objective: exportation. He set up his own circuits of weavers, and perfected a system for ensuring a smooth flow of production. Very soon the cargo ship of Guayaquil, as well as those of Manta, which was just a few kilometers from Montecristi, were being filled with his merchandise for their journey to the gulf of Panama. There he opened a commercial centre he also traded in cacao and pearls. History aided him in his projects, with the first tremors of the gold fever. To get to the Californian El Dorado, the route frequently passed through Panama. More and more prospectors started to arrive, and the omnipresent sun made it necessary to provide oneself with a hat for the long road.
It was thanks to the gold- diggers the straw hat began its conquest of the United States. In 1850, the American giant was already buying up more the two hundred and twenty thousand of them, and seven of the prospectors posed with their hats and bags of nuggets before the Mint, in Philadelphia, for a woodcut that became famous. The same year saw the inauguration of Ecuador’s first railway line, which facilitated the development of the “toquilla” trade. By now, Alfaro was no longer the only person to be exporting hats, and the coming of the train gradually encouraged the emergence of increasing competition.
In response to the economic problems which afflicted certain provinces, the authorities of Cuenca, in the province of Azuay, decided, in 1836, to open a hat factory and, some years later, they set up a workshop both for manufacture and training.
In 1845, Don Bartolome Serrano, a prominent citizen of the little town of Azogues, speeded up the movement by bringing in all the constituents which had made hat- making successful on the coast.
