“I really like working with leather. It is satisfying.”
—Dan Shanahan
If you look on the wall of the Shanahan Harness workshop, you will see the realization of a dream, a handsewn harness built by Garnet Shanahan in 1968. Making that harness by hand for his father’s draft horse, Garnet changed his life and the life of his family forever.
“My dad was a tool and die maker,” says Dan Shanahan, Garnet’s son and the president of Shanahan Harness Shop LTD, “but he always liked working with leather. When he decided to make harness full time, he had two kids and one more on the way. It was a gutsy move, but he also figured he could go back to his old job if things didn’t work out.”
Things did indeed work out. Today, as Hank Williams Jr. would sing, Shanahan Harness is a family tradition – an extremely successful family tradition.
“If you see the Budweiser Clydesdales, they wear our harness,” Dan says. “That keeps us pretty busy. There
