Western gunleather is an icon of American frontier lore. Packing Iron celebrates the artistry and innovation of the craftsmen who designed the gun rigs of the old time cowboys, troopers, lawmen, and Hollywood heroes. This unique art form is fully described and richly illuatrated with more than 300 exciting color photographs and nearly 100 rare historic images. In the pages of Packing Iron you will discover gunleather produced by historic government arsenals, along with the famed frontier craftsmen like Collins, Meanea, Gallatin, and Heiser.
Richard C. Rattenbury earned a B.A. degree in history at Texas Christian University and an M.A in museum studies at Texas Tech University. He has served as curator of history with the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, since 1987, and formerly served in curatorial roles at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, and the Winchester Arms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming. Over a thirty-five-year career, he has researched and installed five major permanent exhibit galleries, as well as some twenty temporary exhibitions treating historic firearms and various facets of western history and material culture.
Rattenbury is the author of The Browning Connection: Patent Prototypes in the Winchester Museum; From Wisconsin to the Sea: The Civil War Letters of Sergeant John V. Richards, Thirty-first Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865 (ed.); Packing Iron: Gunleather of the Frontier West; The Art of American Arms Makers: Marketing Guns, Ammunition and Western Adventure During the Golden Age of Illustration; Hunting the American West: The Pursuit of Big Game for Life, Profit and Sport, 1800-1900; and Arena Legacy: The Heritage of American Rodeo. He also has contributed to trade titles including Sights West: Selections from the Winchester Museum Collection; Encyclopedia of the American West; Visions of the West: Art and Artifacts from the Private Collections of J.P. Bryan, Torch Energy Advisors and Others; and A Western Legacy: The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. In addition, he has authored some fifty articles treating firearms history and technology and the history and material culture of the American West in popular and special-interest periodicals such as American Rifleman, American West, The Carriage Journal, History News, The Ketchpen, Man at Arms, Military Images, Outdoor Oklahoma and Persimmon Hill.
Rattenbury resides with his wife in Edmond, Oklahoma.
