Big Bend Saddlery

Big Bend Saddlery is situated way out on the Western edge of a town called Alpine, just as Highway 90 makes its turn into desolation, in a building fabricated to look like the storefront one might find along the promenade of any of the Main Streets of the Wild West, and it’s right next door to a hatmaker named Spradley. The shop is so named for the region just to the South where the Rio Grande River bends to make West Texas’ Southernmost border, and it’s here for well over a century they have been churning out world class saddles and tack for the horse and horseman alike.

Owner Brett Collier took over the shop with his partners about thirty years ago, and since then, Big Bend has introduced its handmade crafts to the current generation of ropers and ranchers, designing everything from high quality saddles to the finest luggage and leather goods in the workshop hidden behind their checkout counter. As a proper ranch outfitter, they also sell well-priced palm leaf hats and several brands of clothing and gear for a day on the trail. As a store that celebrates the enduring appeal of the West, they sell a number of gifts, like a fancy buckle for your belt or for the modern man, a hand-tooled case for your tablet device.

Big Bend’s skilled craftspeople work with a specially tanned hide that comes from the region’s best livestock. They are always on the premises, using tooling techniques that have existed since the shop first opened over a century ago. The intricate basket-weave look of tooled leather requires a million tiny tools to create the desired effect.

Originally published in The Collective Quarterly, Issue Ø (Marfa, Texas), 2014.