Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1894 — FOND OF COWBOY SADDLES. [ARTICLE]

FOND OF COWBOY SADDLES.

£B(llfh ud Gcmtsi Bay dieh. of the Finest Goods 11* de In Cheyenne. All over North America for many years Cheyenne saddles have been famous, and every equestrian, outside of the United States cavalry and of the northwest mounted police of Canada, has either had his horse tricked out with Cheyenne leather or has wished he had. The fancy work on saddles, holsters and stirrup hoods that once made Mexican saddlery famous and expensive long ago was copied by the Cheyenne makers, who kept up the fame and beauty of American horse trappings, but made them so cheap as to be within the means of most horsemen. In the old days when Western cattle ranged all over the plains and the cowboy was in hislglory, that queer citizen would rather have a Cheyenne saddle than a best girl. In fact, to be without a Cheyenne saddle and a first-class revolver was to be ho better .than the sheepherders of that-era. When a reporter of the New York Sun found himself in Cheyenne the other day the first places he looked for were the 6addle-makers’ shops. He was surprised to find only one showy, firstclass store of the kind, and instead of there being a crowd in front of it there was no sign of more business than was going at the druggist's, near by, or the stationer’s over the way. In one way only did the reporter find his hopes rewarded; the goods displayed in the windows were beautiful and extraordinary. There were the glorious heavy hand-stamped saddles; there were the huge, cumbrous tapaderos; there were the lariats or “ropes," the magnificent bits that looked like Moorish art outdone, and there weje the “mule skinners” and the fanciful spurs, and, in short, the windows formed a uiuleum of things that a cowboy would have pawned his soul to own. The metal work was all such as a cavalry man once declared it, “the most elegant horse jewelry in creation.” Englishmen and Germans now buy the fanciest and the best trappings to send abroad to their homes. Handstamped saddles cost from SBS to $lB, but $35 buys as go id a one as a modest man who knows a good thing will care to use. Cowgirl saddles were on view—seven of them —with rigging for side seats and in stirrups made in slipper shapes. It is not that there are really half a dozen cow-giris in the world or half a dozen women like the Colorado queen or the lady horse breeder of Wyoming, but there are Western girls who have to ride a great deal, and they have fond fathers and brothers and still fonder lovers; hence the manufacture of magnificent side saddles, all decked wi’th hand-stamped patterns and looking as pretty as the richest Bedouin ever dreamed of horse gear being made. There is still a good trade in cowboy outfits that are ordered from Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado and Texas, and similar goods go to the horse ranches of Nevada, Idaho and Oregon. Moreover, as long as men ride horses there will be a trade in fancy outfits for them.