Pete Verbeck, a Miles City sadldlemaker, for example, started at the age of 15, in 1915, in an apprenticeship under Furstnow’s, Al Moreno.
The youth spent five years learning the intricate art of carving flowers on the more ornate saddles. He worked there until 1920, when he went over to the Miles City Saddlery. He switched back and forth from time to time, thanks primarily due the Depression, which found a man taking work wherever and whenever it was available. He was the foreman at Miles City Saddlery from 1939 to 1944, at which time he opened his own shop.
There were also “tramp saddlemakers,” who drifted around the West working at various places for a time and then moving on, sometimes not even owning the tools of the trade.


Some of the individual saddles were more famous and more original than others.
For example, the “Cisco Kid” saddle, which includes a great amount of silver, rests in the University of Wyoming Library. Similar saddles were built for movie cowboys, Tim McCoy and Tom Mix and his daughter.
The Miles City saddlery put together a $2500 package for Crown Prince Olaf and Princess Martha of Norway for their 1938 sojourn to the states.
A lot of fancy saddles were made for famous people, but thousands of unknown cowboys had life a lot easier, thanks to the saddlemakers of Furstnow, Miles City Saddlery and their followers, who made some of the finest saddles in the world.