Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1988–1989
Rawhide Braiding:
Randy Stowell and George Nix
Randy Stowell was born in 1949 and raised on
the family’s ranch in Rowland, northern Elko
County, Nevada. He grew up in the buckaroo tradition
of cowboying and remains active in the cattle business
in Elko and White Pine counties. Randy has earned
a reputation as one of the country’s best braiders of
beautiful and functional rawhide horse gear.
“My father gave me the desire to rawhide; when
he was young he braided quite a bit. Built ropes and
reins and hackamores and stuff. There’s two parts to
rawhiding. The one part is learning how to braid; tying
the buttons. And the other part is learning how to work
your rawhide, having it in the right condition. That’s
real important in making smooth work, having your
rawhide in the right condition. You can’t just pick a
piece of rawhide up and braid it. You have to wet it,
dampen it, and then let it mellow and get in the right
texture. If it’s too wet then when you braid it and it
dries, it leaves gaps in the rawhide. And if it’s too dry
and you try to braid it, then it doesn’t braid tight.”
George Nix was raised in Oakley, Idaho and earned
a degree in range management from the University
of Idaho. He worked ten years for the United States
Forest Service in Austin, Nevada, and currently does
reclamation work for an open pit gold mine in Elko
County.
“As far as braiding’s concerned, I’ve been interested
in it for a long time. I used to…when I was in high
school we used to ride for a lot of area ranchers working
cows for them. And we had our own horses and needed
gear, and we didn’t have any money to buy gear, so we’d
braid our own out of usually parachute cord or leather. I
never had worked with rawhide and that was primarily
the reason I wanted to take this up.”
Randy Stowell
scrapes the hair off
a cow hide while
George Nix looks on.
George Nix asks
Randy Stowell a
question about
rawhide braiding.
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