GRAPHIC 1912 DALLAS TEXAS BILLHEAD, PADGITT BROS WHOLESALE SADDLERY DOWNTOWN

Description

GRAPHIC 1912 DALLAS TEXAS BILLHEAD, PADGITT BROS WHOLESALE SADDLERY DOWNTOWN. ORIGINAL GREAT VIGNETTE
ESTABLISHED IN 1873
FAMOUS FOR BRONCO BRAND OF SADDLES
ADDRESS:1012-1020 COMMERCE & 1015-1021 JACKSON ST.
PRESIDENT: J D PADGITT
SECRETARY TREASURER: C W PADGITT
SOLD TO: CARTER IVY HARDWARE, WEATHERFORD TEXAS,
Padgitt Brothers was established by 1873 in Dallas while that city was a roaring frontier town of flimsy shacks, board sidewalks, and boggy streets built around the court house square. Padgitt Brothers first location was in a newly constructed two story brick building on the west side of the square. There, wagons often mired in the boggy streets and drivers sometimes were pitched from their seats as wheels fell into deep chug holes.
Freighters who brought wagon trains of buffalo hides from Fort Griffin to Dallas stayed to buy supplies and gadgets either made in Dallas or hauled in by the iron horse. Padgitt Brothers styled its business on a sign over the front door as "Manufacturers and Wholesalers of Horse Collars, Harness and Saddlery Goods," and soon Dallas became the wholesale point for a vast area. Many a hard-to-please ranchman came to Dallas to buy a Padgitt saddle, for a Padgitt saddle had already become the pride of the range rider, and for many it remains so today.
In early day Dallas, Clint and Jess Padgitt followed a pattern of business that would seem peculiar in these times. They would arise while dark then go to the wagon yards and other places where visitors could be found to solicit business from cattlemen, freighters and frontier merchants. By 6:30 A. M. they would be at home for breakfast and then return to the store for a ten hour day of serving customers.
Their trade mark was "Bronco Brand", which pictured a Buffalo Bill type cowboy with goatee and buckskin clothes casually riding a Padgitt saddle a-top the hurricane deck of a bucking bronco.
With the square literally jammed with freight wagons, its sidewalks and stores crowded with buyers from the great territory to the west, business was brisk. A forty dollar saddle would sell as fast as it could be made. There was also a big demand for harness leather from the freighters and teamsters supplying the Texas frontier with Dallas merchandise.
When Padgitt Brothers came out with a new saddle, one with llama hair covered pockets draping the back of the cantle, their business boomed and they had to seek larger quarters. They moved east to a site near the present location of E. M. Kahn and Co. Next they moved to the site later to be occupied by the old Slaughter Building, for which they paid ,000. They spent ,000 developing this location and in the boom of the late eighties they sold that location for 0,000”trebling their money. They put this into the present five story home of Padgitt Brothers Company at 1020 Commerce Street. The two brothers thought they had provided room for all the expanding they could ever do, but were to learn differently.
By 1900 they had to build a six story factory building adjacent to their property on Jackson Street, as well as to spread out on Commerce Street with space to show their extensive line of buggies and carriages. The firm became of age in 1900 when it was incorporated as Padgitt Brothers Company, Manufacturers, Jobbers and Wholesalers of leather goods.
SEE MY STORE: VINTAGE HARDWARE STORE COLLECTIBLES
ORIGINAL, LETTERHEADS, BILLHEAD, BILLHEADS, HARDWARE.