New to me Myres info

rednichols

rednichols

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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
 
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
 
rednichols said:
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
Click to expand...

Another mystery solved.
 
crazyphil said:
Another mystery solved.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
rednichols said:
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.
Click to expand...

EPS says, on their website, they have been making holsters, etc.
since 1889.
 
crazyphil said:
EPS says, on their website, they have been making holsters, etc.
since 1889.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Doc Barranti said:
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.
Click to expand...

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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