Old West Mail Order Catalogs for American Made Horse Tack

A true conversation between myself and a customer, a true western cowboy-

Customer- "Hello this is Dennis from billings Montana do you have a catalog ?"

John Brand- "Why yes I do sir. Appreciate your interest and I will send right up. But it's only about 1/3 of what we sell. Most is on our website."

Customer- "Well I'm just a cowboy with no access to a computer. Don't know how to turn it on anyway."

John Brand- "I understand. How did you find out about us?"

Customer- "I am sitting here in the bunkhouse reading Cascade Horseman and saw your article."

John Brand- "I thanked him."

With all our computers, laptops, and blackberry's we forget about the real life and the true cowboys who still work the range today!

Which made me start to think about all the old west cowboys, miners, and frontiersmen that purchased their goods and western gear via a catalog....

In 1896 the United States Congress authorized Rural Free Delivery and by 1911 there was a local U.S. Post Office at nearly every crossroads in America... almost seventy-seven thousand of them!
(pictured here-Terry, Montana Post Mistress Susie Snow and her husband in front of their combination log house and post office in the summer of 1899.)

Cowboys, ranchers and farmers no longer traveled to the general store or the livery for their goods and horse tack, they could just order through a catalog and get it by mail.

There was the Sears, Roebuck and Co., the Montgomery Ward & Co. and other catalogs that specialized in just American made horse tack, saddles and cowboy gear.

The Sears Catalog was referred to as the Farmer’s Bible or The Wish Book. The 1897 catalog, available in reprint, shows what new and established residents of rural America needed to live and prosper, and it lives up to its Wish Book nickname. There were groceries, including long lists of flavoring extracts. Drugs follow, offering a wide range of homeopathic as well as conventional patent medicines; those living in rural isolation often coped with illness and injury alone and a full cupboard of remedies increased the chances of survival. Rural doctors also surely ordered from the catalog.


Tools of all kinds comprised a large share of catalog pages, including well, wagon and domestic hardware as well as tools needed for home-building and farming. Both stoves, wood- and coal-fired, required serious consideration and expense; before a customer laid out $10 to 15 for a stove, he wanted to know about it in detail!


In the 1900’s along with the Sears catalog, there was the Hamley & Co, the Fred Mueller Catalog, and the N. Porter Catalog. They offered the old time cowboy saddles, boots, western cowboy gear, and American made horse tack.

The mail order catalogs allowed the frontiersmen and cowboys to live their life on there own land away from the big city and have access to all their goods and western tack.


To receive a copy of the Buckaroo Leather catalog with our American made western horse tack you can email me at buckaroojohn@sbcglobal.net or call (800) 873 0781.





Our family has been dedicated for 30 years in serving
the Western Horseman the safest most durable Quality
American made leather horse tack.......Buckaroo John Brand
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