Billy Cook saddle History

[TroyWest]

Billy Cook opened shop in Greenville, Tx. many yrs. ago after serving a time in the military where he had met Bill Potts. After a time they got together because Billy had the shop and Bill had the money. It became Billy Cook Saddlery/Potts Longhorn. The Billy Cook saddles were the upper line saddles, and Longhorn were the lower line. The Billy Cook saddles had better trees, Herman Oak leather, beveled stainless dees, hand tooling, and hand sewed rigs to skirts. Longhorn were lesser priced trees, regular stainless hardware, synthetic wool, and machine sewed rigs to skirts.

Tooling patterns were often pressed by a huge press, which is what made a lot of those saddles really hard and stiff. The people that worked there were proud of their work and proud to work there and made one of the best production saddles of that day. Jay Lynn Gore was the head tooler there for many years. The tooling look of Billy Cook saddles was largely the work of Jay Lynn.

Billy was the manager of this operation for many years, designing all the saddles, making patterns, and then having a complete set of dies made for every new design. Billy believes in dies.

Billy later started another shop in downtown Greenville making harness. It was called Billy Cook Harness. Eventually he started making saddles there too. He would work at Longhorn in the morning and go to the harness shop in the afternoon.

Billy Cook Saddlery/Potts Longhorn had coorporate offices in Dallas. In the late 80's Bill Potts passed away. The Co. continued to be run from Dallas. The co. had tons of orders but there was corporate embezzlement in Dallas and the co. went chapter 11, and then chapter 7. Everybody wanted to buy it and it went up for auction. Don Motsenbokker bought it. (I dont know if I spelled that right) Don was originally a bookkeeper for the Shoelkopf family. This was the family that used to make Jumbo Saddles. Don knew the saddle buisness and already owned Action, Tex Tan, Simco,which is in Chattanooga, Saddlesmith, and now Billy Cook Saddlery. He then advertised as the largest saddle co. in the world, which he probably was. That is how Simco and Longhorn came to be associated. Simco is still in Chattanooga, Longhorn is still in Greenville, Tx.

They did combine the coorporate offices in Chattanooga and call it Simco/Longhorn.

Billy Cook did not sell his name, he just couldn't keep it. When the Co went bankrupt everything went up with it, including the name, which had international recognition, Which is what made it valuable. He did keep building saddles at Billy Cook Harness until the I.R.S. shut him down for not paying his taxes, or not doing witholdings correctly for a number of years which amounted to a ton of money, which put him out of buisness in Greenville.

Sulphur, O.K., had one of those grant type situations to get new buisnesses in their town and Billy got one. That is why he has his buisness there while still having his home in Greenville, Tx.

No one who works at the Greenville plant is an original employee, but all the dies and patterns were done by Billy Cook. When those companies fuse like that they can buy literally truckloads, traincar loads of leather, synthetic fleece, glues, threads, etc. everything and distribute them to their various plants, also much cheaper than any small shop can do. This is one reason why a custom shop can't compete with a production shop, and shouldn't even try.

The bottom line is Ron, if you have a Billy Cook saddle then it was made in Greenville, Tx. Billy Cook saddles have never been made in Mexico, or in Tn. Saddles labeled genuine Billy Cook saddles are made in Sulphur, O.K. where Billy wants it to be clear that that is where he is, the real Billy Cook. If you have a Greenville, Tx. Billy Cook saddle and you like it, just enjoy it.

Troy West

[superchute]

Thanks Troy great job on geting the facts

Russell

[TroyWest]

Thanks Troy great job on geting the facts

Russell

You're welcome,

Troy

[CutterGa]

Troy, thanks so much for the info about the Billy cook saddles. I really like the Billy Cook saddle that I have and am going to keep it and restore it. I do have a question that no one has been able to answer yet. Do you know what " Made for Rolling" implies??? Is this a reining or cutting term?? It is stamped on the latigo keeper on my BC saddle..thanks again. ron..

[jennifer]

Thank you Troy for the clarification. I was still curious about identification so I called both Billy Cook Harness and Saddle in Sulpher Oklahoma and Longhorn/Simco makers of the Billy Cook Saddlery saddles and got the following information:

From Dick in Texas I was told that Longhorn uses only the Billy Cook Saddlery Stamp, if it says "Billy Cook Maker" it belongs to the Sulpher Oklahoma company. He didn't know if Billy Cook used that stamp before leaving Texas. He doesn't have any records of that stamp being used and they don't have rights to use the maker stamp. If you have a model number he can try to look it up. He doesn't have records prior to 81, but he does have some old catalogs and can sometimes find information on older Potts-Longhorn saddles.

From Christy in Oklahoma I was told that if it says "Billy Cook Maker" it was made by Billy Cook either in Texas or Oklahoma. She also told me that Billy brought with him a practice of indicating the year the saddle was made and still uses the same methodology. If you look under the Fender the first two digits before the model number tell you what year the saddle was made.

Neither company had any clue what "Made Special for Rolling" meant. Christy said it may possibly be a person's name, but "Billy won't remember".

Phone numbers are: 800-251-6294 (Texas) and 800-311-7549 (Oklahoma).

Jennifer

[TroyWest]

Troy, thanks so much for the info about the Billy cook saddles. I really like the Billy Cook saddle that I have and am going to keep it and restore it. I do have a question that no one has been able to answer yet. Do you know what " Made for Rolling" implies??? Is this a reining or cutting term?? It is stamped on the latigo keeper on my BC saddle..thanks again. ron..

Ron,

Your question intrigued me, I'd never heard that term, so I called Billy Cook, Sulphur and they didn't know and said they don't do that. I know the guy who runs the Greenville plant and he didn't know either . I said who would know? He said Dick Chambers, ceo Chattanooga might know. So I called him. He didn't know either. Suggested it might have been made for an individual named Rolling?

There is the term rollback, which is done on horseback but I never heard it referred to as rolling.

Well I just read Jennifers post before posting mine and she basically found out the same thing. Great minds think alike. Maybe your just supposed to set it on the back of the couch and roll off on the floor!...sorry

Have a great day

Troy

[3arrows]

Thanks everybody (Jennifer and Troy) for doing the history on this saddle. I think I know what the term refers to. If you look at the cost to compete in the Cutting Horse industry, you have to be "Rolling" in money to do it. Man the Cutting Horse sport costs more than my airplanes do...thanks again. ron..

Edited May 27, 2008 by 3arrows

[superchute]

for shere on the planes cheaper then the horses. I have Biplane and pa28 for shere the horse cost me more

Russell

[Rancher]

I went in a saddle shop in Midland, TX back in the mid 80's owned by a man named Bill Cook. Wonder if he's any relation?

[Tosch]

Does someone has an email address for Billy Cook, OK, ? I cannot find any, nor can I find a website. If possible the CEOs email, I wanted to let them know that on Germany's ebay fake (or I would be too severely mistaken) Billy Cooks are being offered - from India, and not for the first time.

For anyone interested here is a link: http://cgi.ebay.de/16-BILLY-COOK-WESTERN-S...A1%7C240%3A1318

and here another: http://cgi.ebay.de/16-BILLY-COOK-WESTERN-S...A1%7C240%3A1318

If you have an email address let me know (PM) or let Billy Cook know directly if you want.

Tosch