Here's a Myres connection that I didn't know of, and still don't know any more details than I mention here, except that during this image search I ran across another saddle with the same maker's mark: Harlan Webb - Maker - S.D. Myres Saddle Company - El Paso Texas.

Full link here:

Album Archive - Item 004193 - Vintage Handmade Harlan Webb SD Myres Saddle and Matching Breast Collar

Pics from it don't download as jpegs so we'll have to settle for this live link that someday won't be.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

Red:

I haven't been on a horse for years, and I don't know the first thing about saddles, but that is a beautiful work of art. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I can see that it would be a natural progression for someone skilled in saddle making to apply their talents to holster making, as you outline in your excellent chapter of your new book (that I am anxiously awaiting the publication of) that you recently shared with us.

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

The most rudimentary search for this new name, turned up this surprise (to me):

Harlan owned SD Myers Saddle Company and Ritter Saddletree Company in El Paso, TX from 1965 to 1978.

1978 is the exact year that Bob McNellis formed El Paso Saddlery from the assets of Myres that he bought -- we now know, from Harlan Webb. Harlan died just a few years ago; someone (including me) should've been on the hunt for all this history about ten years ago.

- See more at: Harlan Webb Obituary - Ruidoso, NM | Ruidoso News

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

Really nice old bear trap saddle, very talented maker there !

Another mystery solved.

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In Omnia Paratus

It puzzled me then, it puzzles me now: how or why didn't Bob McNellis get the Myres name from this man, when he purportedly bought all its equipment, all its patterns, and took some or all of its craftsmen; and instead started up with the EPS name, a company that had been closed since 1902? Restarting under the Myres' name would've (genuinely) given him dating rights back to Sam's beginnings.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

Harlan Webb owned SD Myres from 1965 to 1978. Here is the kink in the El Paso Saddlery/Myres/Webb story...

A gentleman named Frank LaCroix....



LaCroix was based in Massachusetts, and the 80th year of SD Myres would have been 1978.

And to further confuse things...the story goes that an employee of his purchased the holstermaking side of the business in the 80s I believe. His name... Dave Duclos. Dave left the northeast, drove clear across the country to Sweetwater, TX. He pulled up in front of the original building where Tio Sam began in 1898, and called the building owner and told him he wanted to rent the space.

From there, an anonymous investor stepped in to carry on the Myres tradition and legacy, and that is how the Barranti-Myres line of gunleather came to be.

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Mike 'Doc' Barranti

Still clear as mud, Mike :-).

I've sent an email to Bob McNellis' son at EPS, let's see if I get a reply.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

You've probably seen this thread before... Post #19 is of interest.

SD Myres and Early Ammo

As you said...clear as mud!

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Mike 'Doc' Barranti

Thank you Mike, I had not seen that thread. Yes, #19 is interesting, as is #14 showing me that turnerriver has been holding out on me all these years, about Myres' history!

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

EPS says, on their website, they have been making holsters, etc.
since 1889.

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In Omnia Paratus

Indeed. Yet two articles by founder Bob McNellis say differently, and several other sources confirm. I suppose I have no dog in that fight one way or the other. I just like fact-finding :-). And this new chap, despite Doc knowing it seems, does not appear in any other reference I'd seen to date. Hence my interest to see that blank filled in via serendipity.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

From someone who knows zero about leather gear and holsters:

O.M.G., talk about a way to get to a B.B.Q. to show off your B.B.Q. rig. If I was lucky enough to own that saddle I'd have to go to the expense of buying one of them stupid horses, and a set of boots to go with it.

Red, thank you for posting this.

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Always Stay Strong!

Red, I enjoy looking at that saddle. It is not very often that I see a saddle with oak leaf design. One of my closest friends was a saddle maker named Eddie Bacon who passed away last year. I have gladly noticed the interest in leather craftsmanship that has grown the past years. I remember when Eddie worried that the craft would become a lost art.

Never owned a horse, and most likely never will, but I would take that saddle and proudly display it right in my living room!! Really nice work.

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Miss My Buddy crsides!!

For me this a tragedy, these half-dozen unrelated persons with claims on the Myres name (with the exception of Dale Myres' range). The water began to be muddied when the Myres stamp changed from "El Paso TEX" to "El Paso" and got progressively murkier.

Regardless of my personal/professional feelings on that, if anyone on this forum cares to preserve at least the facts of Myres' history, then we can share our print knowledge including catalogues.

For example, I've a set of images in my files, of what is purported to be Myres' 1972 catalogue; but Bill Myres is the company's president, so according to this thread and the 2009 thread that Mike referenced, it can't be a '72 catalogue. Or is it? Which info is inaccurate?

"I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours" including any/all Myres or non-Myres reference data anyone wants, so that we can compile and then deduce accurate dating for Myres.

Those of us Myres "experts" are old and it's already almost too late to accurise the history, as was accomplished with Brill because of another very old man (90+), Stan Nelson. Let's stop leaking tiny bits of data here and there around various forums, and work together to build an accurate database to leave to historians.

(I've only recently learned, for example, who Sandra L. Myres, biographer, was to Sam Myres: she was married to his grand-nephew): "Sandra Myres (1933 – 1991) is a Myres by marriage. She was married to Charles E. Myres (b. 1920), S.D. Myres' great nephew. Charles' lineage looks like this: Ernest R. Myres (father), Morriss Carlos Myres (grandfather). Morriss is Samuel Dale Myres brother." is from another researcher, Michael Venables in California, whose main focus is the Brills. Super guy, super smart, super resources.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

Interesting history - I plan to follow along, see what Bob McNellis has to allow, etc.

Here are the three stamps used...





The original stamp, far left in the second photo, more than likely dates to the move to El Paso around 1920. The patent for the Border Patrol holster was issued Sept. 7, 1937, so safe to say that stamp was built late 1937 or 1938. The small stamp, with similar construction to the patent stamp, possibly built by the same stamp maker, could have been made around the same time. Why the small stamp? Maybe for small items like this hatband, and they also stamped the T strap on later jockstrap styles with it also.



Even though Harlan Webb "owned" the company, is it possible the deal was to keep William Myres as president?

Not many questions answered with this post, but maybe fills in a small gap.

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Mike 'Doc' Barranti

Bob passed away around the turn of this century, so I'm hoping to hear from his son Ryan (one my sons' name, too).

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

I'd say that all your deductions are plausible -- but wouldn't we rather KNOW than guess? I would.

As for the "El Paso" only stamp, I have had a different deduction for some time now. Holsters that I've seen with this stamp, have some commonality: they're typically in newer condition than the ones with the "TEX" included, and they are often not a catalogued item; such as the Myres copy of the Berns-Martin Speed Holster.

So I refer to the "TEX" version as 'early' and the "EL PASO" version as late; and wonder why someone would go to the trouble to commemorate that everyone knows which State El Paso is in :-). Yet now that we know that so many have held both of those stamps in their hand, it could be any one of those folks who wielded them to mark a holster called "Myres". For me it destroys any efforts at dating accuracy without examining the thread for something besides linen; which even then would make an item only post 1970.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

My co-conspirator Michael is also a web genius and was able to provide me with jpegs of the Webb saddle images; this lets us keep some of what we've seen without relying on that particular link staying live and unbroken.

Here are three of them, one showing the complete saddle, the others showing the two different Webb marks:

DSC00762.jpg

DSC00749.jpg

DSC00748.jpg

He also was able to turn up more historical info on the Webb-Myres connection, that I'll post later.

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

I met Harlan Webb while he was still in El Paso in the 70's sometime. He was a saddlemaker par excellence and a very fine tooler.
He wound up around Lincoln NM in later years and I do recall hearing he passed a while back. Seeing his craftsmanship in person is really something.
As a side note, he was the owner of the saddle tree company that was formerly Ritter Tree Co. and is now Bowden Saddle Tree Co.
So, I guess you could say he was well diversified in the leather business around El Paso for quite awhile.

Yes indeed, and thanks for the info which we only encountered yesterday ourselves:

How We Got Started | Bowden Saddle Tree Co., Inc. states --

In mid-1976 the owners of Standard asked Francis to partner with them to purchase and manage Ritter Saddletrees from owners Harlem Webb and Sons in El Paso, TX. The business was at that time located on Alameda Street in central El Paso. The company name was changed to Ritter Saddle Tree Co., Inc. In 1977 Francis relocated the business to Anthony, TX, where it remains almost 40 years later.

Ritter Saddletrees was named after P.Q. Ritter, a noted saddletree maker from Oregon, that came to El Paso to train the Webb family in the art of saddletree building. Ritter helped the Webbs establish their company in the late 1960’s. Due to the help and assistance he gave them, the Webbs named the company after their mentor P.Q. Ritter.


Note it also mentions a fire wiping out operations; thinking of Myres' Sweetwater ops, it might seem to holster people like "deja vu all over again".

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Red Nichols The Holstorian

This fits right into this discussion...

Beautiful carving detail...

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Mike 'Doc' Barranti