Visalia Saddle

Visalia Saddle. . , Around the 1860's the Mexican saddle makers of this area developed a new saddle for the working vacquero. The names associated with the development of this new stock saddle are J. Martarell, J. Salazar, R. Mattley, and A. Herrera. All were old friends and were at this time repairing and making saddles both independently and cooperatively around the Visalia area. , In 1870 David E. Walker opened a saddle shop at this location then known as 60 Main Street. It was known as the "Visalia Saddle Shop". The men listed above who knew how to put this together, by now the very new and popular style of saddle, were brought together at this shop and the "Visalia Saddle" was produced and very successfully marketed. , The saddle trees were cut from native oak crotches and carved by Mr. Mattley. The leather was "oak tanned" locally. The silver work on saddles, spurs, bits, etc. was done by Mr. Herrera and the saddles and tack were in all ways a Visalia product. At different times, the firm was Walker and Shuhan, Walker and Wade, and Walker and Wegner. The Visalia Times of 1887 describes the shop "as the largest of it's kind with saddles, bridles, spurs, bits, harness here displayed and of the best kind. The saddles are everywhere, being shipped to all parts of the country". A saddle store was opened in San Francisco in 1887 and the Visalia store was turned over to D. E. Walker's nephew E. W. Weeks and Mr. Walker moved to San Francisco to run the store there. In 1894, at 47, he passed away and Mr. Weeks carried on the business until his passing in the early 1930's. It then went into steady decline and was moved to Sacramento where a disastrous fire delivered the final blow in the early 1960's. All modern stock saddles today are the direct descendants of "The Visalia Saddle".