When he retired the shop in 2017, I had a decision to make that had nothing to do with money and everything to do with respect. I could've kept his name on the door and run the place my own way. I didn't want to risk that. Weldon's was his, built exactly how he wanted it, for sixty years, and I wasn't going to let my version of running a business start wearing his name down. So I left it alone. Retired means retired. His name stays intact, exactly how he left it, still legendary all over North Texas.

What I couldn't leave alone was the rest of it. The trade. And the idea of a small, family-run western store still standing on a downtown street where those are getting harder to find every year. So in 2017, in the same building he built in 1957, I opened Wilkinson's. Not a reopening of his shop, something new, under my name, carrying his craft forward. The craft goes back to 1957. This door's a little newer than that.

Everything we make here still gets built the slow way, by hand, because that was never up for negotiation. A lot of what you can buy today shows up overnight and looks like it was made by nobody in particular. That's not what this is. If something you order from us takes a while, that's not a delay we're apologizing for, that's a person actually making it. We'd rather you wait on something real than get something fast that isn't.

Our shelves aren't only what we make. We carry goods from other makers too, small-batch pieces built the same slow way alongside names you'd know, like Wrangler. Good is good, whether it comes off our bench or somebody else's, and we'd rather stock what we'd actually want to own.

My grandfather used to say there's something romantic about the west. He was right. I think about that every time I'm at the bench. This isn't a business plan. It's a promise I made to a building, and to a man who traded a saddle for my hospital bill the day I was born.

Thanks for stopping by.

Clint Wilkinson