From the Archives: Saddle Sense
Some say history repeats itself. Calvin Allen doesn't mind.
Take a walk through Calvin Allen's Western store and workshop in Hudson Oaks – and look closely. The tables that display finely-detailed, nearly knee-high cowboy boots and the glass cases filled with fine silver belt buckles and spurs are just as treasured as the pieces they showcase. They're antiques Allen has rescued from garage sales and flea markets.
Now, step back into Allen's dim office.
"These are the kind of lamps that take a little while to warm up," Allen said with a chuckle about his antique light fixtures.
The office is littered with more history than a storeroom closet at the Smithsonian. The glass cases in here house antique military saddles from the Civil War and old military rifles. Those saddles, by the way, are from Union General George McClellan's own design.
"I take ideas from things I like on older saddles," Allen said. "We started creasing the borders on the saddles really just because it was something I saw on older saddles and liked."
It's the attention to detail that Allen likes so much about these older saddles, and that extra care and dedication is something he tries to bring into his own work.
"Pretty much everything we do is a lot of handwork," Allen said. "Everything is hand-tooled or hand-sewed."
Allen's gimmick is that there is no gimmick. He just makes quality saddles, reins and bridles.
And it's a gimmick that has served him well.
There are more than a handful of notable cutting horse trainers and professionals who will only ride on a Calvin Allen saddle. One of those loyal riders is cutting horse trainer Clay Johns.
"He rides, he's roped and he's ranched," Johns said. "I think that's why he understands our needs, and then he marches it with quality and style."
Cutting horse legend and four-time NCHA open world champion Buster Welch bestows an even higher honor on Allen.
"He's more interesting than most saddle makers," Welch said with a slight chuckle, "and he's not too bad of a cattle puncher, either."
Stitches in time
A peek inside Calvin Allen's workshop reveals why his saddles are so unique. This is no industrial-size warehouse space. Instead, the craftsman's shop is a little cramped. The seven or eight people who make up Allen's dedicated team duck and twist around turn-of-the-century sewing machines and stacks of smooth un-tooled leather that eventually Allen will be a saddle.
Saddle making is a multi-layered process that involves putting a rigid "tree" into the saddle and essentially adding leather, straps and other essentials for a cutting horse cowboy via hand-stitching, gluing on and tying down.
All the leather is hand-tooled at Allen's shop. On a good day, he said he can complete the basic saddle-building in about 30 hours.
Allen still makes saddles, though not quite as many as he used to.
"I love to do it, and I still do," Allen said, "but I get pulled away too much."
As Allen looks over Kathy Lewis' work on a carved and inlaid belt, he points out, "A lot of other places won't bury a stitch into a groove line like that. But we do."
Allen makes two distinct styles of saddles, one that bears his name and another that bears Buster Welch's.
The friendship between the rider and the saddle maker is plainly evident. The two had known each other for years, but their professional relationship blossomed after Buster won a Calvin Allen saddle in competition.
Rather than make a stock saddle for the competition, Allen custom-made one for Welch, a much more time-intensive process.
"He said, 'I've never had to wait so long to be so pleased with something,"' Allen said. Welch is still happy with Allen's product.
"He sure makes a good saddle," Welch said. "He takes a lot of pride in what he does, and that quality carries forward in his saddles."
Allen, too, has gained much from the friendship. "I still subscribe to the Buster Welch way of riding a horse, which is that you ride a good cattle horse. You get work done by advising the horse, and not telling it what to do," Allen said.
Johns said Allen's quiet thoughtfulness is carried into his saddle making. "He's a very fun person to be around one-on-one," Johns said, "and he's quite well-read. And because of that, history means a lot to him."
You can see that love for the past as Allen shows his collection of old postcards, near relics in this day and age of highspeed Internet. Although, he points out, there is one snag in collecting local postcards.
"You don't find them in Weatherford because people mailed them off," Allen said.
Standard of care
Allen's been around horses, and history for that matter, nearly all of his life. He grew up just outside of Richmond, Va., in a town called Mechanicsville, where most of the fighting of the Seven Day's Battles took place during the Civil War.
After riding roping horses through most of high school, Allen left Virginia to go to school at Weatherford College, and then on to Tarleton University.
In college, Allen discovered saddle making.
"It's a trade," Allen said. "Like any trade, you just have to watch someone and learn it."
Allen worked for a few saddleries in Fort Worth, including Cajun Saddles. He struck out on his own in 1975 and founded Calvin Allen Saddles.
He still rides fairly regularly, as does his wife Brenda. And he's still crafting quality in the saddles he creates.
"A lot of people think a saddle is just a saddle," Allen said. "But everything we do, and every product we use leather, the trees, or whatever, has to meet a standard."
Not everyone feels that way anymore.
"There are all different levels of saddles, just like automobiles, and I think our customers know the quality we deliver is worth the money," Allen said.
The care and quality is worth it to the artisan saddle maker.
"There are a lot of shortcuts you can take," Allen said. "But making a saddle the best you can is what keeps it from becoming drudgery. Attention to detail makes a difference."
