<\/p>\n
In a small shop at the back of a Mexican restaurant in Mancos, Perry Lewis, 76, ran a ruler over a large piece of leather.<\/p>\n
The leather was heavy, thick and rigid, but when Perry is finished, the unwieldy piece of rough leather will be a saddle.<\/p>\n
Lewis and his cousin Eldon Simmons, recently reopened their small shop, River Traders Saddlery. The two can often be found toiling away and making leather into all sorts of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee this saddle,\u201d Simmons, 67, said. \u201cIt\u2019s a rough-side out saddle.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also pointed to a gun holster, bridles, chaps and even a cell phone case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make pretty much anything out of leather, except boots and shoes \u2013 that takes different equipment,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n
The small shop reopened last year, Lewis used to have a saddle shop in downtown Mancos in the 1980s. So they gave their new joint venture the same name.<\/p>\n
Lewis also runs Rimrock Outfitters. Simmons ranches and farms and is a competitive chuck wagon cooker.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aren\u2019t here much in the summer,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n
When asked about hours, Lewis replied, \u201cWhen we are here, we are here, when we ain\u2019t we ain\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
The duo take pride in their work and the fact that the trade has been around for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n
In fact, Lewis sews leather on a sewing machine made in 1898.<\/p>\n
\u201cI traded an old Cadillac for that,\u201d Lewis said of the machine.<\/p>\n
There is also history in the saddles.<\/p>\n
Waiting to be repaired in the back of the shop were two saddles with a lot of history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis saddle belonged to one of the original settlers in Mancos,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cThis was from the Menefee family. This saddle belonged to the first white baby born in Mancos.\u201d<\/p>\n
The saddle belonged to George Menefee, said to be the first child born to settlers in Mancos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are still good and usable saddles,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cThey just need a little work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis has made about 40 saddles in his life, and Simmons said he has been working leather since he was a teenager.<\/p>\n
Simmons proudly pointed to his wall full of tools.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these tools were bought in antique stores,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And many of those tools were sharp.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou learn to keep your hands on the correct sides of the blades real fast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Simmons is retired from the Mancos Rural Water Co.<\/p>\n
Both Simmons and Lewis said they do repairs and custom saddle orders. Their shop is located behind Chivalo\u2019s Mexican Restaurant, next to Cox Conoco.<\/p>\n
Their slogan is, \u201cCowboy tack and repair by cowboys.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe stay pretty busy,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cousins keep centuries-old trade alive in reopened downtown Mancos shop<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113864"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}