People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — FOND OF COWBOY SADDLES. [ARTICLE]

FOND OF COWBOY SADDLES.

English and Oermani Ituy Much of the Finest Goods Mndc 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 Canadf has either had his horse tricked out with Cheyenne leather or he wished he had. The fancy work on saddles, holster 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 his glory that queer citizen would rather have a Cheyenne saddle than a best girl. In fact, to be without a Cheyenne saddle and a firstclass revolver was to be no better that the shepherders 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 sad-dle-makers’ shops. He was surprised to find only one showy, first-class 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 on 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 were the “mule skinners” and the fanciful spurs, and, in short, the windows formed a museum of things that a cowboy would have pawned his soul to own. The metal work was all such as a cavalryman 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. Hand-stamped saddles cost from eighty-five dollars to eighteen dollars, but thirty-five dollars buys as good 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 with stirrups made in slipper shapes. It is not that there are really half a dozen cowgirls in the world or half a dozen women like the Colorado cattle queen or the lady horse breeder of Wyoming, but there are western girls who liave to ride a great deal, and they have fond fathers aDd brothers and still fonder lovers. Hence the manufacture of magnificent side saddles, all decked with liand-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 areordered from Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado and Texas, and similar goods go to the horse ranenes of Nevada, Idaho and Oregon. Moreover, as long as men ride horses there will be a trade in fancy outfits for them.