Phil (crazyphil) and I have invested quite a bit of time researching how the threepersons holster came to pass, and in playing devil's advocate with our shared research, I believe we have come up with the following as "plausible"; better -- "likely".

That's because we've stumbled across some unlikely references by changing up our search terms, so instead of coming across the usual -- someone like Skeeter Skelton with the old myths -- we encounter the unusual -- like the 1920s newspaper article about Tom (and about which he vigorously complained to the newspaper).

This is how it appears to have occurred:

1. Captain John Hughes, Captain in the Texas Rangers by 1893, visits a local saddlery while temporarily assigned to Austin, Texas. He meets with one Newton Rabensburg and likely with August Brill, both we think working for a previously unspecified saddler in Austin namely W.T. Wroe. Hughes' specification is quite thorough and fits the threepersons paradigm including retention and high ride because cities are objecting to open carry and they will be carried under coats. This is 1907 and makes plausible that Butch Cassidy's famed Amnesty Colt ended up in a holster marked Brill, though both Brill and Rabensburg are quite young. Captain Hughes is well known to Sam Myres as set out in Sandra Myres' biography of the latter, and indeed is the man credited with the buscadero (for "the searchers") belt by Myres.

2. August Brill bears a son named Arno, who by 1913 or so is of age: he's 16, and August founds his A.W. Brill that year. All of the men -- August, Arno, and Arno's son -- are A.W. Brills, but the youngest A.W. dies at the end of WWII. W.T. Roe appears to still be in business in its own right in 1914, so though it's been suggested that August Brill bought out that company, it's likely it continued on its own. Famed Texas Ranger Frank Hamer and another are photographed wearing what must be Brills based on their high ride and the appearance of the trademark cuff on the outside of the holster. The captions suggest these are Rabensburg of a style called a "sunday" holster and today would be called a "bbq" holster: the 'dress blues' version and not for wearing on the trail.

3. Hughes has worked with Rabensburg to create an "issue" holster for the Rangers, rather than for a personal one-off, and soon he has retired by 1916 at age 60. Enter Lee Trimble, a much younger man who has joined the Texas Rangers in 1918 at just 26. Shortly he encounters Tom Threepersons who is an El Paso patrolman by 1920; and rather than the legend that they share ideas, Trimble shows him his Brill/Rabensburg, the latter not ever marked unless with the owner's initials. But Brills are indeed marked. Retention without a strap is the must-have option: Brill or Rabensburg have come up with the triple welt, which applies significant pressure to the long frame in front of the guard on the SAA, which is the favoured handgun of the Rangers. Brill also makes a version for the 1911, which in 38 Super is the 'other' go-to pistol for the Rangers; and for the 38/44 (Threepersons himself had, as his 'other' pistol, a Triple Lock).

4. Threepersons takes this holster or another like it, to Sam Myres. But Sam is not in the holster business during Threepersons' law enforcement career -- all of the 1920s -- and according to Sandra Myres' bio, is losing money in a big way because of the Great Depression and the Model T introduced in 1908, which has caused 2/3 of all of Texas' saddlemakers to close. Sam decides he will close his saddlery and make the switch to holsters. He's lost Sweetwater to fire, his first wife to divorce, and his second wife to illness, and by 1929 is about 60.

5. Arno Brill is said to have gone to work for Sam Myres in 1929, and we now believe that Arno, who was there only 1-2 years, developed Myres new holster line. He is about 32. In Sam's first catalogue of 1931: the model 666, which is the Brill but with two minor changes that suited it to mass production: the cuff is now riveted to the fender rather than the very difficult stitching; and the welt is now a single thick layer rather than Brill's triple-thickness welt (ditto on the very difficult stitching). The cuff is even marked dead center with the maker's mark, as with the Brill, and this becomes the standard for such Myres as the more-familiar 'jock strap' holsters (called 'ranger' holsters by Myres). The now-famous 614, of FBI fame, is far simpler to build and appears less bulky, and the FBI by default makes it the go-to holster over the Brill of the Texas Rangers. Think Special Agent Campbell and his famous tommy-gun pic.

6. Threepersons is on his way out of law enforcement (1929), and Sam Myres is smart enough to realise (proven by his results) that he can get credibility for his new range, which he is not know for at all, by naming them for famous persons. So the new range is named for Threepersons, Tom endorse it in that same catalogue with a letter dated 1930, and so do a host of other big names of the era including Eugene Cunningham. Hughes himself doesn't even endorse the buscadero belt. Sam goes on to name his existing Border Holster for Charlie Askins. Sandra Myres notes that by the end of the 1940s Sam's company is back in the black and prospering. There are only two known personal holsters of Tom Threepersons, one of which once belonged to John Bianchi -- a Myres 614 -- and is in a private collection now. The Fifties and Sixties see off all the players: Hughes by 1947, then Egland (see below), then Sam, then August, then Rabensburg, then Arno Brill, then finally Tom by 1969.

7. There is a sort of sequel to the story: the second holster, which is now in my collection, is neither a Myres nor a Brill. Unmarked, it appears from its unusual construction to be the work of Arne Egland, an Arizona maker whose own shop opened in 1918. The widow of Fred Wells, noted rifle maker, was given the holster by Tom personally at the oldest rodeo in the world: Prescott, Arizona in 1933, when young Fred, then 13, spoke to Tom and admired it. It's marked only crudely on the back, with "H W", who was Fred's younger brother Homer Wells. Rachel Wells tells me that Fred was so proud of the holster that he produced it to visitors to his shop and home in Prescott for the rest of his life.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian