Runningwater Draw Mohair & Tack

May 15, 2024 Editorials, Harness, Leather, Saddles/Tack

by Gene Fowler

When you purchase equine gear from Runningwater Draw Mohair & Tack in Ransom Canyon, Texas, you’re getting fine equipment that has been skillfully produced. Operated by husband-and-wife team Tyler and Kristin Rice, Runningwater Draw offerings include, in addition to tack, just about anything made of leather. Belts, wallets, watch bands, bouquet wraps, gun scabbards and holsters, portfolios, binders, spur straps, guitar straps, fanny packs, laptop cases, luggage tags, diaper bags…you name it. They’ve even made leather Christmas stockings.

But there’s something more. Call it an aura, a spirit, an element or ambience. The Rice team’s creative contributions to living western traditions are infused with the history that lingers in the air at Ransom Canyon, on the eastern edge of Lubbock in the big state’s Llano Estacado (the Staked Plains or the southern extension of the High Plains, aka the Texas Panhandle).

Long a popular camping spot and passageway for Native Americans, Spanish explorers, and pioneers because of its life-giving springs and soaring, sheltering walls, Ransom Canyon got its name from the presence of Comancheros, who negotiated ransom payments for the release of settlers taken captive by the natives. The mixed-race Comancheros, primarily New Mexicans, were so-called because they traded with Comanches and other Plains tribes. Despite the 1961 John Wayne movie, The Comancheros, their role in the American West remains, as one historian noted, “quite paradoxical.”

Runningwater Draw, of course, is much more of a straight-shootin’ outfit than the Comancheros. Tyler Rice handles all the leatherwork and tooling, while his better half, Kristin, specializes in weaving mohair for their equine cinches and breast collars. Growing up in the Lazbuddie, Texas area, about 90 miles northwest of Ransom Canyon, Tyler worked for saddlemaker Gene “Tiger” Tunnell of Earth, Texas, while in high school. Tyler’s dad also did leatherwork when Tyler was a kid, and he “fiddled with it” a little bit at home.

“I wish I’d learned more about it back then, but I didn’t really care much for leatherwork or saddlemaking at the time,” he allows. “Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a cowboy.”

Tyler lived that dream for about 20 years, working cattle and ridin’ broncs in ranch rodeos. He and Kristin started Runningwater Draw five years ago this month, though he also continued looking after cattle part-time until early 2022.

His journey into leatherwork, like many artists and artisans, was assisted by a far-flung community of mentors. “Don Gonzales’ videos were very helpful,” Tyler says. “And I got to meet him at the Heart of Texas Leather Show in Waco, and hang out. He’s been tons of help. I also took a class with Julie Baugher, who runs JBLD Leather School up in Ellensburg, Washington. She’s well-known for her leggings.” Bob Park of Phoenix, Arizona, and Steve Yezek of Lazy Y Leather in Danbury, Wisconsin, have both been important teachers in the western floral tooling department.

“A good leatherworking buddy in Lubbock, Tanner Garcia, has been a tremendous help,” adds Tyler, “as have Dave and Rhonda Pollat up in Colorado. Dave built saddles for me back when I was cowboying. He’s like family.”

While Tyler, as I mentioned, handles all the Runningwater Draw tooling and other leatherwork, Kristin helms the mohair weaving department. Six years ago, says Kristin, Tyler one day told her, “I think you need to work with mohair cinches.”

The couple found a cinch-making class in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “We both took it,” adds Kristin. “Ever since, I’ve been studying mohair and leather tack, messin’ with it and measuring leather tack to get my mohair breast collars functional that I now make as well. And today, we buy our mohair cord from the same folks, U-Braid-It in Santa Fe.”

Asked about the romantic sounding name of their enterprise, Kristin explains that Running Water Draw is a 150-mile-long watercourse that rises in New Mexico, and then flows through Parmer County and past Lazbuddie, where the couple lived after getting hitched some 22 years ago. “So, the name links us to our origins,” she adds, “and gives us ties to hold on to.” The Rices moved the business and their life, with their sons Bronc and Tucker, to Ransom Canyon in September of 2021. With a rich frontier past, the small town is also something of a new frontier. The planned community was founded and developed in the 1960s and 70s.

“We haven’t seen any arrowheads yet, but the boys found an artillery shell from the days when the area was a military training camp for World War II,” says Tyler.

The leatherworker also found that Runningwater Draw and Ransom Canyon are a heckuva lotta letters to fit on a maker’s mark stamp, so these days his pieces read “TYLER RICE. MAKER. TEXAS.”

Images of some recent-ish leatherworks that the Rices shared include a handsome guitar strap with a music clef and note tooled around the name TYLER. “I made that one for my father-in-law’s buddy named Tyler who plays guitar. Friends who’ve seen it go, ‘I didn’t know you played guitar!’ I don’t.”

A rifle scabbard with gorgeous floral tooling above the name PERKINS was made for another pal of his father-in-law. The friend lives in Abilene, where he had owned a business. When he retired, he bought a Henry rifle and asked Tyler if he could make a scabbard for it with a two-week turnaround. “He said to make it pretty and he didn’t care what it cost,” Tyler says. “Because of the short timeframe, I had to basket-stamp part of it, but when the man was given the scabbard, he had tears in his eyes.”

Tyler draws his own patterns and modestly contends—the cowboy way—that he’s “still not good at it.” But as you can see from the work shown here, he’s dang good at the final result. “When I first learned, I started by tracing and copying, figuring out flowlines and how everything ties together.” And like many skilled leathercrafters, he did artwork as a kid, drawing horses, cattle, cowboys, windmills and other shapes in a ranch landscape.

When I interviewed the Rices in May, Tyler was working on a bouquet wrap for a July wedding. Also in progress were some floral-tooled boot tops for bootmaker Abbie Good, Tyler’s best friend’s wife, in Knox City, Texas. As noted above, he’ll make just about anything out of leather—except, so far, for saddles. “I do a lot of saddle repair,” he says, “and my next big thing is to build a saddle. But I am gonna be picky about it. Since I cowboyed my whole life, I know what goes into a good saddle and I want my first one to be good.” He credits saddle pals Dustin Glenn, Dave Pollat and Brandon Ward with a helpin’ heap of know-how.

Currently though, he adds, orders for breast collar tugs “keep me hoppin’.” Kristin says the timeline for tug sets is about two to three weeks. Tooled belts, wallets and other leather gear can take a couple of months. Tyler uses cowhide sourced mostly from Weaver, with some from Panhandle Leather Company of Amarillo. Goat and kangaroo goes into the lining of some Runningwater Draw creations.

About 90 percent of the Rice family business is generated by Facebook and Instagram. “It’s also driven by word of mouth from friends, people I knew in my cowboyin’ days,” adds Tyler.

Runningwater Draw also sells by mail order selected bridle, latigo and harness leathers for the mohair accessories, as well as a wide selection of hardware, mohair and alpaca, billet keepers, belt ends, headstalls and other leather gear. Send them an email to receive a catalog PDF.

But it’s the custom stuff that really drives the Draw. As Tyler and Kristin say, “If you dream it, we most likely can build it for you!”

facebook.com/runningwaterdrawmohairtack

runningwaterdrawtack@gmail.com

instagram.com/runningwaterdrawmohair/?hl=en

*I would put these contacts in a separate spot from Tyler’s contact information, so it doesn’t get lost.

dgsaddlery.com

jbldleatherschool.com

facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067802724697

instagram.com/tannergarcia_custom_leather/?hl=en

ubraidit.com/

facebook.com/abbie.hicksgood

dustinglenncustomsaddleshop.com