Items Similar to VISALIA SADDLE COMPANY SILVER MOUNTED PARADE SADDLE 1939 SAN FRANCISO CALIFORNIA
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 4
VISALIA SADDLE COMPANYVISALIA SADDLE COMPANY SILVER MOUNTED PARADE SADDLE 1939 SAN FRANCISO CALIFORNIACirca Late 1930s
Circa Late 1930s
About the Item
Visalia Saddle Company
Established 1870
San Francisco, California Saddle Maker
Circa 1930s
#16 "William Maxfield" Visalia Parade Saddle
Visalia Saddle Company Established 1870
Saddle Maker Visalia Bohlin and similar makers from California. Western, Cowboy, Saddle.
Since 1870 Visalia Stock Saddle Co. Has played a vital role in the settling and development of the old west. Innovations include the Original Humane Visalia Bits, Flat D rings, The Visalia Stirrup, The famous 3B saddle tree and the finest hand-crafted custom saddles available.
Also created by Visalia Stock Saddle Co. were the first one-piece wool lined Tapaderos and the Spotted Angora Wool work chaps!
Over the span of our 151-year history, Visalia Stock Saddle Co. has and always will use only the finest materials, top first grade leather and employ only the best craftsman available.
There was a saying among the cowboys of the old west:
“If you don’t ride a Visalia, then you aint a real cowboy…"
Visalia Stock Saddle Co. is an innovator. Many try to duplicate Visalia products but Come Up short.
Don’t be fooled by “Visalia style” or “Visalia like”
Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the March-April 1940 issue of Western Horseman. For more on the Visalia Stock Saddle Company, see this month’s print feature, “Visalia Style.”
Someone has said, “the institution is the shadow of the man.” The Visalia Stock Saddle Company is the progressive living shadow of three men of three generations: Dave E. Walker, its founder, Edmund Walker Weeks, his nephew and successor, and Leland B. Bergen, the latter’s stepson and present owner and manager. In this series of “Saddle Saga,” we would seek to bring to you tales of events and men of the three periods of the cattle business which coincide with the seventy-year era already served by the Visalia Stock Saddle Company.
From 1519, when Cortez brought with him to Mexico the Spanish saddles-not so very different from those used by the knights in medieval Europe-not a single improvement of note was made to add to the comfort or practicability of saddles until in 1868 when there came into an obscure harness and saddlery shop in Hornitos, near Visalia, California, one of these crude saddles for repair.
These old Mexican-type saddles were cumbersome atrocities in most cases and could be almost depended upon to cause sores on the horses’ backs. The tree itself was really little more than a wooden frame, rawhide covered, while overall was thrown the loose-fitting leather cover called the mochilla. The stirrup leathers had no fenders or rasderos, so of necessity the rider wore leather leggings to protect himself.
For 350 years then the knights of the American cattle range, from Mexico north, endured this discomfort until the day Ricardo Mattley determined to improve upon the Mexican saddle brought to his humble shop for repair.
So well had he done, that the year following, which was seventy years ago, Mattley moved to Visalia where he associated with the company that now bears the town’s name, making trees by hand. Here, Dave E. Walker, realizing that upon the three the reputation of a saddle depends, developed his saddle business in the very center of the rich cattle industry of the southern San Joaquin Valley and from Visalia oak and Kaweah willows were made the first of the slick fork Visalia saddles that enthroned not only the cowboys of that early fenceless range period, but the cattle barons themselves.
Those were the magnificent days of the great Miller and Lux ranch expansion. They were the days also of the banditry of the Dalton gang and Sontag and Evans. The latter shortly before his death in 1917 appeared at the Visalia Saddle Company store in San Francisco, crippled and partially blind, seeking to sell in a long familiar institution a book telling the story of his life that was led in the very shadow of the old Walker saddle shop. Indeed, he as well as the financially secure ranchers who owned an estimated 288,483 cattle which grazed the ranges of the California cattle country in the 1870s spent many a starry night pillowed in crude comfort by the same Walker saddle that bore him day by day over the miles of range he rode.
These then are the saddles, made since 1870 under a trademark that bears the name of Dave E. Walker, pioneer, that were to bring at long last comfort to horse and rider. The twang of taut reatas held secure by the sturdy horns implanted in the oak crotches that made the fork, sang out in a strange accompaniment to the shouts of the men, the bawling of the calves, the smoke of the fire, and the putrid smell of hair singed and hide scarred for the sake of ownership identification by the brands that are truly the heraldry of the range., the coat of arms of cattlemen from Calgary to Buenos Aires.
Nor was the Visalia saddle a local institution. Trail drivers from Texas rode horseback into Visalia with men from Idaho and Montana in search of the improved stock saddle for which the little town in California had become famous.
The western cowboy is a strangely conservative individual for even now though he may crush his hat at a different angle, it is still as in the seventies a Stetson; his Levis are still standard range equipment; he still wears chaps though they are not apt to be Angora; his good stock horse is still the apple of his eye-though he may ride luxuriously in a trailer from corral to roundup; and for himself and his horse after seventy years, there is still the D.E. Walker Visalia stock saddle.
- Creator:VISALIA SADDLE COMPANY (1870, American)
- Creation Year:Circa Late 1930s
- Dimensions:Height: 50 in (127 cm)Width: 39 in (99.06 cm)Depth: 28 in (71.12 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:This fabulous piece of art has been professionally cleaned, leather conditioned, and silver polished. It is a magnificent piece of California Saddle Making History.
- Gallery Location:San Antonio, TX
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU769314207992
About the Seller
5.0
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 1974
1stDibs seller since 2017
82 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Fredericksburg, TX
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
More From This SellerView All
- SMU Southern Methodist Unversity School of Arts Sculpture Mid Century ModernLocated in San Antonio, TXSMU Architectural Bronze Dimensions: 16.75 H x 4.75 W x 4.25 D Medium: Bronze "Southern Methodist University"Category
1960s Modern Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsBronze
- "Rushing River" Texas LandscapeLocated in San Antonio, TXD. Robins Image Size: 18 x 36 Frame Size: 24 x 42 Medium: Oil "Rushing River"Category
Early 20th Century American Realist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsOil
- "MR. HANDSOME" TEXAS LONGHORNLocated in San Antonio, TXDane Ellsworth Texas Artist Image Size: 38 x 44 Frame Size: 39 x 45 Medium: Oil "Mr. Handsome" Texas Longhorn Biography Dane Ellsworth Dane Ellsworth enjoys all things Texan. Whether it's an old west character or a depression era car his painting backdrop is the Lone Star State. He has been wielding a crayon, pencil or brush as far back as he can remember. In his junior year, due to a long list of dubious events, Dane wound up on the verge of homelessness. Between a longsuffering landlord and a horse rancher who took him under his wing he was able to finish high school. Once he graduated, he moved to the ranch and started working with horses and developed a love for that majestic animal. It was about this time he met and became friends with Fred Olds...Category
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist Animal Paintings
MaterialsOil
- "THE COWBOYS" TEXAS HILL COUNTRY James Robinson (1944-2015)By James RobinsonLocated in San Antonio, TXJames Robinson (1944-2015) Austin, Dallas, Houston Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 40 x 50 Medium: Acrylic "The Cowboys" Texas Hill Country Biography James Robinson (1944-2015...Category
20th Century American Realist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- "SUNSET HILL COUNTRY IN WHITE" TEXAS HILL COUNTRY" SNOW SCENEBy Manuel GarzaLocated in San Antonio, TXManuel Garza (Born 1949) Texas Artist Image Size: 18 x 24 Frame Size: 23 x 29 Medium: Oil 1972 "Sunset Texas Hill Country In White" Biography Manuel Garza (Born 1949) Growing up in C...Category
1970s American Realist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsOil
- "Masquerade" Figurative Narrative "Being Human" vs. "Human Being"Located in San Antonio, TXSamuel Wilson (1986-Present) Texas Artist Image Size: 27 x 20 Medium: Oil "Masquerade" When you see them in person you will say UNBELIEVEABLE. From his series "Being Human" vs. "Huma...Category
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist Figurative Paintings
MaterialsOil
You May Also Like
- Troublemaker, Bolting Horse without RiderLocated in Brookville, NYKathleen Friedenberg began her professional career as a veterinary surgeon in England, and came to the United States, on a Thouron scholarship, studying human and equine orthopaedics...Category
Early 2000s American Realist Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsBronze
- Dog Bronze Foxhound Sculpture by Charles RumseyBy Charles Cary RumseyLocated in Brookville, NYThis beautiful bronze of a Foxhound is a study for what was to be a pair of larger ones used as a pair of Andirons outside fireplace at Harriman House in NYC. The artist, Charles Ru...Category
1910s American Realist Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsBronze
- Rams Head Sculpture in Bronze by Charles RumseyBy Charles Cary RumseyLocated in Brookville, NYCharles Rumsey was an avid sportsman, horseman and a child prodigy in sculpting sent to Paris to study as a boy. His life of hunting fishing and ridin...Category
1910s American Realist Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsBronze
- Wall sculpture of sunflower plant: "46r New Growth"By Loren EifermanLocated in New York, NYEiferman invite’s you to immerse yourself in a world where transformed shapes, lines, and colors are all crafted out of nature's detritus. The inspiration for her drawings come from ...Category
2010s American Realist Still-life Sculptures
MaterialsWood
- GorillaBy Tom PfannerstillLocated in Fairfield, CTRepresented by George Billis Gallery NYC and LA. The works in the series “From the Street” are carefully crafted, carved and painted, trompe l’oeil depictions of everyday common obj...Category
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist Still-life Sculptures
MaterialsOil, Wood
- 5 Hour EnergyBy Tom PfannerstillLocated in Fairfield, CTRepresented by George Billis Gallery NYC and LA. The works in the series “From the Street” are carefully crafted, carved and painted, trompe l’oeil depictions of everyday common obj...Category
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist Still-life Sculptures
MaterialsOil, Wood
