By Patti Wilson Contributing Editor
Somewhere north of 3,000. That’s a big number. It’s a bit shadowed by time but seems accurate enough. It’s the number of saddles built by Elmus and son Lyle Henderson in the Platte Valley Saddle Shop, Kearney, Neb. Lyle’s wife, Lynda, joined the business full time in 1979, taking over bookkeeping and counting saddles. Last September, her tally was 2,753 saddles. It does not figure in the saddles made early in the Hendersons’ marriage or the saddles made by Lyle’s father Elmus while Lyle was just a little ankle-biter playing under his dad’s work bench.
A Family Heritage
Elmus Henderson founded Platte Vally Saddle Shop in 1942 with his wife, Edna. His skills had been honed, among other places, on the U Cross Ranch during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Deep in the Nebraska Sandhills, this was a time when draft horses were depended upon for field work and saddle horses for cowboying.
Traveling with a sewing machine, each year, he set up shop in a barn hayloft on the U Cross. Elmus bunked there for two weeks at a stretch each winter, repairing harness for 300 draft horses. Smaller ranches would bring their harness in to be repaired, as well.
Corn harvest in the fall brought a need for this same service in Kearney’s Platte Valley. The area has long been a hot spot for corn farmers. They depended on their draft horses as much as the ranchers. Eventually, Elmus realized it would be a good place to drop roots; he had a growing family. As horse use declined in favor of tractors, he changed with the times and began focusing on saddles. It was a blessing for Edna; she was a talented artist and began tooling leather with great skill.
Here Comes Lyle
Five years after the saddle shop was founded, Lyle Henderson arrived. In a February 12, 2020, article by Brian Gnuse for NTV, Lyle Henderson was quoted as saying “I was raised in the shop. When I was a baby they kept me in a cardboard box and then, when I got bigger and was running around, I slept under the bench when I got tired. Dad would throw scrap leather under the bench.” Henderson built his first saddle when he was 12 years old.
Learning Cowboy Ways
It is said that if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. Such was the case for Lyle. The youngster had an uncle who ranched north of Whitman and his name was also Elmus. The ranch was a haven for the youngster. “I never missed a branding from the ages of 1 to 18,” Henderson remembers.
Every opportunity to spend time on the Whitman spread found him present, ready to saddle up. It’s noted that the time he spent there was necessary in learning the importance of constructing sound, useable saddles.
Graduating from Kearney High seemed secondary to ranch work at Whitman. After earning his diploma, Henderson was called to serve in Vietnam but flunked his physical. He spent a two-week stint at a community college in Hastings before dropping out (no horses there) and went to work for Morrison and Quirk Angus, also near Hastings. The purebred outfit ran more than 2,000 cows on about 35,000 acres. Starting in 1967, Henderson heat checked during AI season. An additional 1,000 head were kept at the famous Taylor Ranch northwest of Grand Island. The job suited him well. “There was a constant moving of pairs,” which he loved because it was all done horseback. “I quit that job five or six times,” he says, “but I kept going back.”
Time Marches On
Displaying an itchy foot, Henderson took a cowboying job in Idaho. He returned to Nebraska and worked at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, a job he thoroughly enjoyed. There was an additional perk; he met Lynda, a Grand Island native. They married in 1970. “She’s been good help for 55 years,” Henderson says. Having grown up with no agricultural experience, she says that she abruptly adjusted to the sight of a chilled calf in her bathtub during calving season.
A job opportunity in Montana reared its head, piquing serious interest from Henderson. But his dad had different ideas. He needed help at the saddle shop, and, doubting it would work, requested anyway that Henderson come home to make saddles. By this time, it had occurred to him that, regardless of his unconditional love of cowboying, it didn’t pay too well. He joined his father in Kearney, putting an end to his wandering ways. Although afoot in the shop, he was not horseless. He team roped regularly through his life as long as he was able.
The Platte Valley Saddle Shop is the oldest saddlery in Nebraska, and one of the oldest in the country.
Platte Valley Saddle Shop
Over time the shop has evolved. Moving “across the tracks” to the south side of town in the early ‘70s provided more room to grow. When his father passed away in 1979, Henderson bought out his mother’s half of the business and brought his wife aboard. Lynda owned her own hairdressing business but sold it to help facilitate the saddlery. She says, initially, she missed her salon customers. Local men had to overcome the male notion that there were no women allowed in a saddle shop. She is the bookkeeper and website manager, and helps with saddle repairs and finish work on new saddles.
Outlying jobs such as shoe repair have been phased out in favor of custom-made saddles and associated leatherwork, such as bridles or spur straps.
In 1994, the shop was moved to a rural acreage south of town. It joins the Henderson home, with livestock facilities and horses included. The couple has one son, Michael, who lives in Kearney, and two grandchildren.
Henderson says their shop is the oldest saddlery in Nebraska, and one of the oldest in the country. They have sent their product worldwide, including France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Brazil. Most orders are from repeat customers. Trade shows were once on their agenda and they have seen the United States, but the couple now mostly stays home.
A little rest is well deserved for this couple who has made their mark in a unique and demanding business.
