Arizona Buscadero Rig Discovery?

March 13, 2012

I have thought for a long time that our obsession with the eradication of Buscadero gun rigs in movies was a little over the top. Especially when you look at Commodore Perry Owens in his buscadero rig, but this always elicits a snobby, "Yes, but that's the only one." Well, we published another one about five years ago showing a Flagstaff lawman with a buscadero rig and although it was undated, it clearly was before 1900. This led to a theory in the office that perhaps there was a movement in Arizona, or perhaps a gun leather craftsman in northern Arizona who specialized in the low slung holster (Commodore was from the Holbrook area and later Seligman, both towns on the Santa fe rail line, as is Flagstaff.

Yesterday I was looking for something in my photo archives and found this familiar image from Holbrook:

I've seen it many times, but this time something jumped out at me. The guy in front of the horse appears to have on a buscadero rig. Here's a closeup up:

Or, is it merely the leg of the guy in the background? So yes, the Mexican loop holster was predominate in the 1870s and early 1880s, but I think there was an early movement to build buscadero rigs in Arizona during this same time period. Just a theory, but I have a hunch I'm right.

"People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first."
—David H. Comins