IF YOU LIVE IN THE ALBUQUERQUE AREA, you know Dan’s Boots & Saddles—even if you’ve never shopped there. Located on a charming section of North Fourth Street, the Western wear and feed store’s retro, ranch-style wooden facade and life-size black stallion sign are Los Ranchos landmarks. But Dan’s stands out for more than its nostalgic appearance. After more than 70 years, the third-generation, family-owned business continues to earn the respect and patronage of local ranchers, farmers, equestrians, rodeo folk, and lovers of a good hat.
“That’s Dan, there,” says Larry Christensen, pointing to a black-and-white photograph of his grandfather posing with a Chevy 1-ton pickup truck. The framed image, hanging above the entrance to Dan’s Boots & Saddles, was taken in Farmington on Armistice Day (now Veterans Day) 1925, when the patriarch was just 12 years old. “And that,” Larry says, gesturing to a watercolor of a modest building with a red gas pump in front, “was his first trading post in New Mexico.”
Find work and fashion boots at Dan’s Boots & Saddles.
As I breathe in the musky leather smell of the boots and saddles all around me, Larry explains that Dan Christensen purchased the Pinedale Trading Post, located east of Gallup, in 1938. (His first store was in Rock Point, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation.) Back then, most of the purchasing was done with the barter system, and a majority of his clientele came from nearby Navajo and Apache communities.
“After Dan passed away [in 2009], a big guy came in with tears in his eyes to pay his condolences,” says longtime employee Marty Norlin. “He said his mom used to walk for miles to get to the Pinedale store because she didn’t have a car, but that Dan would always drive her home.”
“Many of our customers are generational,” says Larry, who now owns the business. “People will bring in their grandkids and say, ‘This is where we shopped back when.’ ”
In 1953, Dan’s Boots & Saddles opened its first Albuquerque location on Central Avenue, focusing on Western apparel and horse tack. In 1970, the shop moved to the village of Los Ranchos and added rodeo accessories—including tooled-leather chaps and gloves—as well as animal feed and other ranch supplies to the back half of the store.
Located on North Fourth Street, Dan's Boots & Saddles features a rustic facade with vintage Western signage and weathered wooden accents.
Advertisements in the Albuquerque Journal from that time touted Dan’s as the state’s “Western headquarters” for cowboy and work attire, including Stetson hats, Justin boots, Levi’s and Wrangler jeans, H Bar C pearl snaps, and Pendleton flannels. Perusing the store’s current selection of apparel, it’s clear that not too much has changed in Western fashion over the decades.
“I got my first Levi’s jacket here when I was 14,” says Tristan Manyhorses, whose family owns a cattle ranch in Grants. He’s currently working as a horse stuntman for Kevin Costner’s Western saga Horizon. “It’s all busted now, but I still take it with me everywhere I go,” he says. Manyhorses has also built relationships with Dan’s employees. “They’re good people and good at what they do,” he says, “like shaping cowboy hats.”
That knowledge comes from living the lifestyle. “We’re horse people,” Larry says. “We’ve got ranching and riding in our families.”
I ask if there’s been an increase in the “all hat, no cattle” crowd lately, since Western wear has become popular. “We’ve seen some new faces,” he says, mentioning Yellowstone. “But there’s always peaks and valleys. It’ll die off and be something else. Our longevity isn’t about trends. It comes down to heritage, customer service, and a loyal customer base.”
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