S.D. Myres
Sweetwater, Nolan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Samuel Dale Myres began his career as an apprentice saddle-maker in Cleburne. He moved to Sweetwater in 1898. A highly skilled craftsman, Myres was soon know for his superior workmanship. He served as mayor of Sweetwater from 1908 to 1911, and was instrumental in many city improvements. His saddlery business was relocated to this building in 1919 after a fire destroyed his first shop. Myres closed his Sweetwater business in 1937 and moved to El Paso, where he died in 1953. (1989)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Samuel Dale Myres learned the saddle-maker's trade as an apprentice in Cleburne before moving to Sweetwater in 1898, where his exceptional craftsmanship earned wide renown. He served as the town's mayor from 1908 to 1911 and relocated his saddlery to this building in 1919 after fire destroyed his first shop. In 1937 he closed the Sweetwater business and moved to El Paso, where he continued making saddles until his death in 1953.
Why it matters
Myres was among the master saddlers whose gear outfitted the working ranches of West Texas, blending frontier craftsmanship with civic leadership in a growing town.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the time Samuel Dale Myres set up shop, West Texas was in the midst of a great transformation. The open-range cattle era of the 1870s and early 1880s was giving way to fenced ranches and railroad towns, but the horse and the working cowboy remained the beating heart of the regional economy. In that world, a saddle was not a decoration—it was a tool a working man trusted with his livelihood and sometimes his life, and the person who made it well was a figure of real standing.
Sweetwater, where Myres arrived in 1898, was a young railroad and ranching town on the rolling plains of West Texas. Towns like it were coming into their own at the turn of the century, acquiring the businesses and civic institutions that turned a rail stop into a community. A skilled tradesman who could serve the surrounding ranches had a ready market and a path to prominence.
The decades Myres worked spanned the tail end of the Gilded Age and the rise of the automobile—a period when the old horse-powered West gradually yielded to the machine age. That he thrived across that span, then eventually moved on, quietly traces the changing fortunes of a craft tied to a passing way of life.
People & events
Myres learned his trade the old way, as an apprentice saddle-maker—starting at the bottom, mastering leather and stitch and tree through years of hands-on work before he could call the craft his own. When he moved to Sweetwater in 1898, that hard-won skill quickly set him apart, and his name became shorthand for superior workmanship.
But Myres was more than a craftsman at a bench. Between 1908 and 1911 he served as mayor of Sweetwater, throwing himself into the civic improvements that a growing town needed—the mark of a tradesman who had become a community leader. His shop was as much a part of the town's identity as his office was.
Disaster struck when fire destroyed his first shop, but Myres rebuilt, relocating his saddlery to this building in 1919 and carrying on. He kept at it until 1937, when he closed the Sweetwater business and moved to El Paso. There, far to the west, he continued making saddles until his death in 1953—a craftsman working leather nearly to the end of a long life.
Its place in the American story
The American saddle is one of the great functional art forms of the West, and the master saddlers who made them were essential to the working cattle economy that shaped the national imagination. Every trail drive, every roundup, every day's work on a ranch depended on gear that fit both horse and rider and could survive brutal use. The best saddle-makers earned reputations that spread far beyond their home counties, their names spoken with the respect reserved for people who did difficult things exceptionally well.
Myres's life also captures a distinctly American pattern: the skilled tradesman as civic pillar. In countless towns across the country, it was the butcher, the blacksmith, the merchant, the saddler—people whose competence and reliability were visible to everyone—who stepped into local leadership. Craftsmanship and citizenship were of a piece.
His story quietly marks a turning point, too. A saddler whose career ran from the 1890s into the mid-20th century worked straight through the transition from the horse to the automobile. That such craftsmanship endured and adapted across that shift is part of how the material culture of the Old West survived into the modern age.
If you visit
Stand in front of this Sweetwater landmark and the first thing to appreciate is that it's a building with a second act—the home Myres built for his saddlery in 1919 after fire took his first shop. Old commercial buildings like this are easy to walk past, but this one carries the story of a craftsman who refused to be put out of business by a fire.
Let yourself imagine the work that once happened inside: the smell of leather and neatsfoot oil, the tap of tools, the slow shaping of a saddle that some rancher would use for decades. West Texas towns like Sweetwater wear their ranching heritage plainly, and a marker like this connects the built environment on Main Street to the working world of horses and cattle that surrounds it.
If you're traveling through the region, this stop fits neatly into a route that takes in the ranching and railroad history of West Texas—county courthouses, old downtown blocks, and the wide plains where the saddles Myres made once did their work. It's a small marker with a big theme: the dignity of doing one thing extraordinarily well, and the way a single craftsman can leave a mark on a whole town.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Samuel Dale Myres
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sweetwater Reporter
Sweetwater, TX
The paper that became the Sweetwater Reporter began in 1881 as the Sweetwater Advance, founded the same year Nolan County was organized by C.E. Gilbert, who had also started the Abilene Reporter. After John Millsapps bought and modernized it in 1906, he and his partners launched daily editions under the Reporter name in 1911. A later owner, Houston Harte, went on to help build the national Harte-Hanks publishing firm.
Ragland Building
Sweetwater, TX
Community leader R. A. Ragland raised this hand-hewn limestone building in Sweetwater in 1901, adding a second story in 1906. Over the decades its floors held a remarkable range of West Texas commerce and services—a blacksmith shop, a hardware store, law and abstract offices, a Western Union telegraph office, a cotton exporter, doctors, and even a sanatorium. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1979.
Davis House
Sweetwater, TX
Walter Wright Davis and his wife Florence built this Sweetwater home in 1916, its design caught midway between the craftsman bungalow and the Colonial Revival. Exposed rafter ends, knee braces, and divided-light window sashes mark it as typical of 1920s domestic building. A 1927 remodeling added twin dormers and traded the original broad porch for a small entry.
I.M. (Mose) and Margaret Newman House
Sweetwater, TX
Ira Mose Newman, born in 1887 into a prominent Nolan County ranching family, became a leading Sweetwater businessman in real estate and banking, a Texas Tech University regent, and an award-winning trapshooter, while his wife Margaret (Hamner) was active in civic affairs. The local firm of Nichol and Campbell designed their home in 1925 as a one-and-a-half-story Tudor Revival house with a cross-gabled roof, prominent chimney, grouped windows, and an arched entryway.