History, Halters, Paris KY, Craftsmanship, Bourbon County
How Quillin Leather & Tack went from a Bourbon County stripping room to the nation's largest custom halter shop
Every fall, when the yearlings head to the sales ring and the stall doors in Central Kentucky start wearing new brass nameplates, a good share of those halters come from one place: Ralph and Donna Quillin's leather shop on Main Street in Paris, Kentucky. We make more than 17,000 custom halters a year here. That makes us the largest custom halter shop in America.
It didn't start that way. It started in a stripping room.
1982 Opened in Paris, KY | 17,000+ Halters a year | 16 Craftsmen | 5 Main Street homes |
Where it began
If you grew up in Bourbon County, you know what a stripping room is. It's the small, plain room off the tobacco barn where families spent the cold months pulling cured leaves off the stalk and grading them by hand. Warm enough to work in, bright enough to see by, and not much else.
That's where the first Quillin halter was cut and stitched in 1981. No storefront, no sign, no catalog. Just leather, a few tools, and a county full of horse farms that needed tack that would hold up.
then
The idea was simple, and it still is: make a halter the way a horseman would want it made. Good leather, honest stitching, hardware that won't let go, and a nameplate you can read from across the barn aisle.
Five addresses on Main Street
Word got around the way it does in horse country — farm manager to farm manager, sale to sale. The stripping room got crowded, and the shop moved to town.
Then it moved again. And again.
Since 1982, Quillin Leather & Tack has occupied five addresses on Main Street in Paris: 806, 807, 1929, 723, and now 716. We didn't move because we wanted a change of scenery. We moved because every one of those buildings got too small. More orders meant more benches, more machines, more leather on the racks, and more people to work it.
806 | 807 | 1929 | 723 | 716 |
| Main Street, Paris, Kentucky · 1982 → today | ||||
That's about as plain a measure of growth as there is. You don't go looking for a bigger building until the one you're in won't hold you.
Come see the current one for yourself. Book a shop tour.
The machines and the leather
Walk into the shop today and the first thing you'll hear is the stitchers. We run Campbell stitching machines that are more than a hundred years old. They were built to last, they've been kept up by people who know them, and nothing made since stitches leather quite the same way. A new machine would be faster in some ways. It wouldn't be better.
The leather is English bridle leather — firm, dense, and finished to take hard use and a good shine. It starts out light and stiff, then oil dipped - and with time and handling it darkens and softens into something that looks better at ten years old than it did new. Customers tell us that all the time, and we never get tired of hearing it. (Keep it that way with our leather care guide.)
And then there are the nameplates. Every one is engraved, most get an engraved plate with letters deep enough that the horse's name is still there long after the brass has seen a few seasons of weather and wear.
Sixteen craftsmen
No machine makes a Quillin halter by itself. Sixteen craftsmen do — cutting, edging, punching, stitching, finishing, engraving, checking. Some of them have been at it for decades. They know the difference between a weanling and a yearling halter by feel, and they know which farms like their crownpieces a little longer.
That's the part of the business that doesn't scale with software. It scales with people who care whether the stitch line is straight.
A detour, and a return
Not every chapter stayed in the leather shop. For a while, Ralph also ran Oscar Diggs, a burger joint in Lexington. The restaurant business teaches you a lot about feeding people, keeping the doors open, and taking care of whoever walks in. It also teaches you what you really love doing.
Oscar Diggs has since closed. The leather shop didn't. Ralph came back to where it started, and today Ralph and Donna Quillin run Quillin Leather & Tack together as co-owners.
More than halters
Halters are still the heart of it. They're what the sales companies, the breeding farms, and the racetrack barns come to us for. But the same leather and the same hands now make belts, dog collars, lead shanks, billets, notebooks, and barware. A lot of folks who've never owned a horse own a Quillin belt — or buy one every Christmas for somebody who does.
| Shop the story | |
| Kentucky Sale Halter Track Halter Stallion Halters Bourbon Turnout | Sale Shank Rolled Dog Collar Field Note Book Etched Bourbon Glasses |
What hasn't changed
Forty-plus years, five buildings, and seventeen thousand halters a year later, Ralph and Donna still run the shop on the same idea it started with in that stripping room: make it right, make it to last, and stand behind it.
In Central Kentucky there are quite a few Tack Shops - there is only one where the name on the outside is the same as the owner inside!
If you're not sure what size your horse needs, check our halter size guide or call us. People have been told "just call Ralph" for a long time now. Whether it's Ralph or Donna who picks up, the phone still gets answered.
Now through December is our busiest stretch of the year. Standard lead time is two to three weeks, and it can run longer on our best-selling halters and custom black pieces — so order early if it's a gift.
Shop HaltersShop GiftsQuillin Leather & Tack · Ralph & Donna Quillin, owners
716 Main Street, Paris, Kentucky 40361 · 859-987-0215 · quillin.com
Mon 8–2 · Tue–Fri 8–5 · Sat 9–1 · In-house repairs · Shipping worldwide
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