What 250 Years of American Made Looks Like From a Saddle Shop in Elko
July 1st, 2026
On the morning of July 4th, Commercial Street won’t be doing what it usually does… There will be a parade, the National Basque Festival will happen, Elko gets about as full as it ever does this time of year. Capriola’s will be closed for the day, same as most of downtown. The bench will sit quiet for once — a saddle left right where it was the afternoon before, bits lined up waiting their turn. Even a shop that’s been building things by hand for the better part of a century takes one day off.
This year the holiday carries a little more weight than usual. The country turns 250.
It’s a strange number to hold in your head — 250 years. Long enough that nobody alive remembers the start of it. And yet in a town like Elko, where ranching families have been doing the same work in roughly the same way for generations, you don’t have to look far to feel the length of it.
J.M. Capriola’s has had a hand in that story for 97 of those 250 years. Not the whole stretch, but enough of it to understand something about what lasts and why.
Ask a rancher what freedom actually means and you probably won’t get an answer about flags or speeches. You might hear: nobody telling you how to live, or who to worship. A horse that does what you ask because you’ve earned it. The opportunity to build character that’s worth more than a résumé. That idea is older than the country in some ways — and the West has always held onto it a little tighter than most places.
That same idea is, not by accident, what “American Made” used to mean before the phrase got used so often it started to lose its weight. It meant a person stood behind it. G.S. Garcia was making bits and spurs by hand in this part of the country back in 1893, and the standard he set — quality first, your name on the work — is the same one our crew hold themselves to on the bench today.
Call the store at 1-888-738-5816 to see what bits and spurs are in stock!
The Garcia bits and spurs are made right here in the USA, built by hand to the same standard G.S. Garcia set back in 1893. You can see the full lineup here. Nothing about that standard has changed in 97 years.
“America, Why I Love Her” started as a spoken-word record John Wayne cut in 1973, a Grammy-nominated tribute to the country he loved, written by his close friend John Mitchum. It’s since been reimagined as an illustrated storybook that follows a boy named Little Duke across the country — a good one for a porch read with the grandkids before the fireworks start.
If the day means a backyard full of people and a grill that won’t quit, “Bacon, Beans, and Beers” has sixty-five recipes built for exactly that kind of afternoon.
And if you just want to look the part, an original cowboy work shirt doesn’t care what year it is, and the Hang Ten cowboy hat is for whoever in the family can’t decide if they’re headed to the beach or the rodeo.
We’ll be closed on the 4th, but open our regular hours — Monday through Saturday, 9 to 5 — right up until then if you want to stop in and see what’s on the bench beforehand.
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