The Story Of Quillin Leather

Quillin Leather & Tack

A Kentucky Legacy Since 1982

In 1982, Ralph Quillin took his leather and his tools to a shop on Main Street in Paris, Kentucky. It was good to be there. The bluegrass was real and the horses needed halters.

He started making them by hand. Each one different. Each one made to order, not pulled from some shelf like a dead thing. The leather was honest leather and the work was honest work. A man could do worse than making thousand halters in a year, each one stitched proper by craftsmen who knew their trade.

The shop grew. Sixteen people now, their hands moving steady over the leather, brass fittings gleaming under the workshop lights. They made halters for stallions worth more money than most men see in a lifetime. They made collars for dogs and belts for hard boots and cowboys. They made key tags and lead shanks. Simple things done right.

Kentucky's largest custom halter shop, they called it. But Ralph Quillin knew it wasn't about being largest. It was about the work itself. About cutting leather clean and stitching it true. About sending a halter to Australia or Japan and knowing it would hold. That it would last.

The craftsmen had a hundred years of knowing between them. Some things you cannot teach from books. Some things live in the hands, pass from the old ones to the young ones, quiet as morning in the horse country.

On Main Street in Paris, they keep making halters. One at a time. Made to order. Made right. The leather is still honest and the work is still good. That is enough. That has always been enough.