Jim Cox of Hamilton, Ohio, hates to see the passing of great leather industry brands of days gone by. So deeply does he lament their disappearance, he’s made it a major part of his business to rescue fading brands and resurrect them as departments of his own company.
His outfit – which holds auctions of leather and leatherwork equipment around the country and manufactures and distributes saddles, belts, and other leather products – operates under the overall banner of Tex Tan Belt and Leather Company. Its many departments include such legacy names as Brushy Creek Belt and Buckle, Wright-Bernet Brush, Moser Leather and Laces, Trammel Bit Co., Hereford and Longhorn saddle brands, Simco, Abetta, Bona Allen and more.
The Cox family has created its own legacy brand and we’ll get to that in a minute. But even if you don’t recognize every one of those brands, it’s likely you’ve heard of Tex Tan. It’s been said that, back in the day, Tex Tan of Yoakum, Texas, produced some 30 percent of all saddlery goods sold in the U.S. Tex Tan, and other Yoakum leather-industry enterprises, earned the small town on the state’s coastal plain the high-falutin’ handle of “Leather Capital
