Tag: saddles

Padgitt Saddle Companies of Texas

It may be difficult to imagine today, there was a time when personal transportation (besides walking, of course) relied on horses and mules, buggies and coaches. For decades, local saddle makers enjoyed a thriving business.

Two such companies were Padgitt Bros. of Dallas and Tom Padgitt, Inc. (also known as Tom Padgitt Company Wholesale Saddlery) of Waco. James Robert Padgitt and Mary Jane Bond Padgitt had three sons who lived to be adults. They were Tom (1846 – 1926), William Clinton (1849 – 1909) and Jesse David (1851 – 1948).

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G. H. Schoellkopf

Gottlieb Heinrich/Henry Schoellkopf was born in Germany on September 23, 1849. He came to the United States when he was a youth of 14. A newspaper article in the Amarillo Daily News of June 18. 1940 recounted his early days. Not long after the Civil War, G. H. Schoellkopf had come to Texas in the late 1860s, looking to acquire bison hides for a company of tanners and robe makers (possibly a company run by an uncle or some other relative) out of New York. He set up his first location at a former trading post in Indianola on the Gulf Coast. From there he began to travel around the state and into Mexico looking for hides. The article says Schoellkopf was impressed by the potential of the area and felt like there was an opportunity for him to operate his own business. He was motivated to stay in Texas after a storm hit the area and the waters, either a tidal wave or storm surge, destroyed his business. It would only be a few years later when the first of two monster storms would essentially wipe out Indianola, but this storm was large enough. Schoellkopf took the opportunity to relocate to Dallas, then a small trading village, in 1869.

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