Meet Bill Briggs | Leathercrafter / Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bill Briggs and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bill, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I am an independent minded person. Even though I am able to work well in a group environment, I was raised to be given heavy responsibility and was expected to deliver without the help or guidance of others. Therefore, I thrive working alone. At the time I started our business, I was working four part time jobs in Wyoming and still struggling to pay the bills. I did not like the fact that four separate entities were controlling every aspect of our family life. These other, outside entities had complete control of my destiny at that time and I decided that I did not want to spend the rest of my life being controlled by others. I had the idea that if I created my own successful business, in time, I would have far more control of the elements of my day to day life. I also like the thought of creating something valuable with my mind and my hands.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Both of my grandfathers were authentic, working cowboys. Both of them wore a hand tooled leather belt every day of their lives. One of them, in his late eighties, was having significant anxiety because his faithful old belt was worn down to the point he was worried it was going to break. He had searched for over a year, without success, to find someone qualified to build him a replacement. I began to search with him but ultimately could not find a qualified, hand tooled, belt maker. Finally, I was able to convince my cousin Dan, the saddle maker, to build ol’ granddad a belt. That circumstance woke me up to the reality that there were very, very few belt makers left in the West. I decided I wanted to be involved in filling that void.

Our business name, Lone Tree Leather Works, is based in our cowboy heritage. The John Briggs Jr. family had a cattle ranch in the early 1900’s down in Southern Wyoming; in a little valley near McKinnon. Those were tough times, but good times where the foundation was laid for the long term success of our ranching family. West of the ranch was a little general store and a post office; a place that is still known as Lone Tree, Wyoming. With our authentic hand tooled western leather belts, we honor that heritage. On my work bench I keep a very old, hand tooled leather belt that my grand dad had made when he was a young working cowboy at Lone Tree.

Artistry in leather is magical. Leather is such an enjoyable medium to work within. Genuine hand tooled leather, particularly the floral patterns, has it roots in the West and the cowboy culture. In reality, it likely goes all the way back to the Mexican Vaqueros. Because I am a genuine cowboy from birth, the heritage of hand tooled leather as a decoration or an enhancement of cowboy gear means a lot to me.

Authenticity is a very important attribute to me, I decided if I was going to become a professional belt maker, I wanted to design and create my own floral tooling patterns. Creating a floral tooling pattern for leather is not an easy thing to accomplish. That is the reason that most leather carvers either purchase ready made pattern templates or they barrow a pattern from some other maker. By creating our own unique patterns, I hoped that one day, people would see one of our belts at an airport or in a line at the theater and say, “Yeah, that’s a Lone Tree belt” – just by recognizing the pattern. I believe our Lone Tree tooling patterns are striking and have a lot of eye appeal.

I am completely self taught with respect to carving and tooling. I did buy a beginner’s guide authored by Al Stohlman – one of the true craftsman that really brought hand tooling into the spot light of western culture back in the 50’s & 60’s. From that manual I gained the basic fundamentals of floral tooling. Armed with those fundamentals and the patterns that I was designing myself, I pictured in my mind an image of what I ultimately wanted the finished belt to look like. My first efforts were truly awful. . . . embarrassing actually. A couple of weeks into my efforts, feeling extremely discouraged and depressed, I called my cousin Dan the saddle maker and expressed my doubts about my ability to ever become a successful belt maker. He laughed and said, “Just don’t quit . . . . just keep trying to do a little better with each belt and you will get there.” That turned out to be the best advice I ever received as a leather crafter. Having now created literally thousands of belts, I realize that my artistic ability was developed in tiny increments; improvement so unnoticeable that any two consecutive belts of the same pattern would look identical to the casual eye. I remember a day about a year ago when I completed the tooling on a belt. I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I held in out in my hands with a big smile on my face. After ten years of daily effort, I was convinced that I had become a leather tooler.

Of course there have been a lot of really difficult, discouraging days. Few things are more disheartening than working for hours to complete a belt order only to discover that you forgot or failed to install a key element such as a name on the back or a cattle brand on the tip. Or, when you didn’t have the money for a new sewing machine and you spent two days fighting with an old one, adjusting and tweaking trying to achieve a decent stitch line without success. When Covid hit us, our orders virtually disappeared for almost 60 days . . . we thought we were done. Then we reached out to our past customers and they, collectively carried us through that rough ground until things began to normalize.

Over the past fifty years of my working life, I have been involved in and learned no less than thirty trades. All have been interesting and have served a purpose; all had value. But, I can easily say that learning the leather craft and turning it into a successful family business has definitely been the most rewarding. To this day, I just love working with leather. I never get tired of it. There is such a variety of things I do each day to keep our business running – ordering supplies, visiting with customers on the phone, repairing equipment, sharpening tools, tuning up a laser engraver, etc, etc. The one thing that I really look forward to is pulling out a fresh belt blank, that has been properly cased, with just the right amount of moisture in it, and sinking my swivel knife deeply into the leather. After hours of pouring myself into the tooling, the reward comes when I sit back and examine the results of my efforts and try to imagine the customer’s reaction when they pull their new, hand crafted belt out of it’s velvet bag.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Beaverhead County Montana is a massive, remote region of mountain ranges and valleys nestled up under the Continental Divide. We have over five thousand square miles of wide open territory consisting of mountain ranges and high mountain valleys. Cattle ranching is still the dominating industry with farming and recreation close behind. The Big Hole valley is one of the most scenic and pristine areas of the Rocky Mountain West, known as the land of 10,000 hay stacks. Bannack State Park is one of the only remaining ghost towns of the West that has only been protected and preserved; no commercialization. It still appears today much the same as it was in the late 1880’s when it was the territorial capital and the location of one of the largest gold strikes in the West. We have a National Wildlife Refuge in the Southern end of the county that is home to the Trumpeter Swan. The East and West Pioneer mountain ranges in the center of the county offer incredible scenery opportunities as well as dozens of pristine alpine lakes accessed by miles and miles of hiking trails with improved campgrounds. Our Lone Tree Leather Works shop is just North of the Lima Peaks on the Southern tip of the Beaverhead mountains; among those peaks is Mt. Garfield named after the President standing tall at 10,961 ft., it is the fifth tallest mountain in Montana.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Growing up on a large family cattle ranch, once engaged in any project or assigned task, I was never afforded the option of walking away or quitting before the job was complete. To go right along with that, the job damn well better be done right. My Dad Boyd wasn’t intimidated by anything – at least I never witnessed him back away from any situation or task that needed to be taken care of. We simply engaged and continued to work until the task was complete . . . . or we were dead. If we were still alive, we continued to work. Failure was never an option.

I have a cousin that is a world-class custom saddle maker. His name is Dan Mayer. He and I were like brothers growing up and I watched him build his saddle business from the ground up and become a truly amazing craftsman. Just like my Dad, he was never satisfied with anything less than perfection. I used to sit and watch him design tooling patterns and then carve and stamp them deep into good leather. The artistry and unique quality of each piece was inspiring. Dan was and still is the inspiration that got me started into leather craft.

Shortly after I got started, my wife and sons and daughters took an interest in building a family business and they rolled up their sleeves and began to contribute in areas where help was needed. They have all been involved and it has been extremely rewarding to have achieved success together. They have all encouraged me and I’ have encouraged them and together, we have accomplished what most people, within our circle of friends and family, did not believe possible. My wife DeAnn has been a vital support and a big part of our success from the beginning. She handles a lot of the office work, the shipping and ordering of supplies and so many other things. She is also quality control. Our three daughters have all played a role in our success as well. From designing software programs and spread sheets to web design and actual finish work on the belt orders. Both of our sons have been heavily involved on a daily basis. Both have tooled thousands of belts and done a lot of other things to ensure our success. They have become true craftsmen in their respective categories. We have a son-in-law and daughter-in-law who are and have been very supportive and helped us along the way. Working together as a family can be one of the best things in life.

I really need to acknowledge and greatly value the fact that this opportunity to create a meaningful, authentic, American made product and build a very successful family business is really only possible because we are citizens of the United States of America. The freedoms and amazing opportunities that we enjoy in this country have been provided to us by the blood sacrifice of so many wonderful men and women. I think of them often. I think of the Americans who are serving today – all over world to protect and preserve the right of the Briggs family to enjoy the great benefits 0f not only of living free, but also to enjoy the power of the entrepreneurial spirit and free enterprise.

Also, and maybe most importantly, there is a strong faith element within our success. It was a leap of faith to get started and we have applied faith every day over the past decade. God is good. We pray together often and we know that on so many occasions we received inspiration that helped us survive the rough stretches; ideas and solutions that came into our minds that made a big difference when the chips were down. We also believe that our prayers for help connected us with the thousands of wonderful people who have put their faith in us and purchased our products. Those good people are obviously the life blood of our success and we remember them often.

Website: www.bigskybelts.com

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