Bill Huston (Baker City) is a saddlemaker who spent his youth working as a horse patroller for the US Forest Service, and took up saddlemaking at age 27. At Bakersfield Saddlery (CA) he learned how to make silver-mounted bridles and later crafted the first silver-mounted saddle ever produced at Hamley’s in Pendleton. He is now known for his radical new treeless saddle designed for the comfort of both the rider and the horse.
Bio
When he was just a kid, Huston spent as much time as he could at in the mountains of Northern California where his uncle, Lawrence Huston, worked as a horse patroller for the US Forest Service. Here, Huston “learned to pack [horses and mules], be responsible for livestock, and grease up their saddles.” A tragic accident in high school put Huston in rehab for years. At age 27, when he was just getting back his faculties, his uncle Lawrence read an ad in Western Horseman for a saddle making school in Cody, Wyoming. Huston soon enrolled in the program. Upon his return to California he was hired on at Bakersfield Saddlery where he learned how to make silver-mounted bridles. In time Huston would open his own shop mixing silverwork and saddlemaking. In the late 1980s Huston relocated to Pendleton, Oregon and rented a workshop space at Hamley Western Store where he crafted the first silver-mounted saddle ever produced at Hamley. Risking innovation and departing from traditional work, next Huston developed a radical new treeless saddle. The result reduced the weight of his saddles dramatically while increasing their flexibility and dramatically improving the comfort of both the rider and the horse. The concept for this new approach to saddlemaking was always in Huston’s mind, he just had to materialize it. Now working in Baker City, the appearance of Huston’s saddles remain largely unchanged.
