Saddle Shop Memories

Thanksgiving Past

Saddle Shop Memories

Smell of Leather

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The notes were strung out across the desk in preparation for a Thanksgiving thought.

            The Mayflower Compact, the nebulous authority of King James I as far north as what became Massachusetts, the seasonal traditions of thanks in the northeast and Christmas in the South, and the departure from the seasonal celebration of bounty added to the larder from the hands of the producer were all set to be discussed. No doubt, words could have been found to make sense of what the day once was and what it has become, but that, in part, ended with the last football game and continued with the ever expanding black Friday extravaganza that is reidentifying the holiday.

            Then, it all changed.

            What was expected to be a collage of fall colors, crisp mornings, and holiday tributes turned out to be the smell of a leather shop and the dreams of a wad of Grant County boys who are becoming lost in a blur of cultural change. Blame it on my dad who remains one of just a few local historians who can relate the chain of ownership of obscure holdings that can only be rediscovered in the Silver City Courthouse. It started with a conversation about a water trough that served as the exact corner of the Estes, the Norris, the Calloway and the Wilmeth places. It continued with the admission of a most shocking and risqué discovery upon opening the gate at the Sycamore corrals in full view of the family, but it all served as a game changer.

The mood was broken. Those memories with the expanded discourse of saddle shops turned out to be much more interesting.

Saddle Shop Memories

The center of the universe was, of course, Silver City.

Admittedly, it is was true that everything in every direction was looked upon as being downhill. It was a hard place to be accepted and it was harder yet to become part of the fabric. It has turned out that it is one of the great climates of the continent to live and that has changed everything in the modern age much like the holiday of record. Original Silver Citians are rare and fewer yet could name one resident, historic saddle maker much less a string of them. Of course, the modern era must begin with Doc Seitzler because there is no one alive who can talk about anybody before him.

In the Shelley book, there is a picture of Seitzler at his shop noted as being on 13^th Street up somewhere near where Mr. Mauldin’s little grocery store once stood (that was where one morning in his living area attached to the one room store the old grocer was standing before his mirror shaving and the next moment he was looking at the drain pipes where he had fallen through a rotten floor).

I have related a number of times about the Seitzler we have. It was built for Aunt Izzie when she was married to Hub Estes. That was a rocky, violent affair that ended with two individuals dedicated to the demise of one another, but colorful they both were. The most beautiful thing about that union was the picture that hangs in the office of the New Mexico Cattle Growers in Albuquerque of the old GOS headquarters high on the Mimbres that she and Hub owned when they were married. Before it was brushed up beyond the pale, the Gila country including that ranch was once a grand place, truly God’s special country, and that picture depicts it gorgeously.

Williams followed Seitzler.

We have what we believe are two Williams’ saddles. Both were my grandfathers’. The silver horned one is fully original including the traditional tapaderos that some Grant Countians, looking down from their uphill perches, likely criticized, but I no longer care. I wouldn’t change a thing about it and should probably display it formally. The other is a saddle I rode last Wednesday. It was my paternal grandfather’s and it remains one of the most comfortable saddles. It fully sweats most horses and I have often contemplated having the tree duplicated a half inch longer for a new version.

Hub’s brother, Wayne Estes, followed Williams and I was reminded I should remember where Wayne’s place of business was. It was directly south on the corner across from Bobby Jackson’s long gone Howell Drug. Wayne was one of the three Estes brothers with the third being Phil who owned the fourth brand that was recorded on his side of the trough referenced herein above. Wayne had the only child, a girl, among the three brothers.

The more I think about it the more I am convinced being old enough to smell leather in that shop. It is also likely that the shop had a contemporary competitor up Bullard when Dick Hays had his little shop. It was there Hank told me they had a .30-30 laid under the counter during one of the violent Kennecott strikes. Of course, I knew Dick. He was one of the most talented individuals in the history of the county and could well have turned out to be my uncle, but, that, remains another story.

Estes sold to Wilburn Thomas and from that lineage one of the great gentlemen of the saddlers, Garrett Allen, emerged. I ordered a saddle from Garrett once and wished I had kept it on his list. Garrett’s shop was in the historic building cattycorner to the ice plant.

Wilburn Thomas sold to Gruwell, and from there Andrews arrived and the modern age began. In each, the ambience of leather and the craft and skill of the craftsman wrapped itself around every person who walked through those doors. Such a world of wonder those shops were and remain today.

Talk about historic … every one of them smelled the same.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Leather chains us all together.”