Jeans of the Old West: A History

[aho]

Count me jealous...If I ever make it out west, you'll be the first person I contact Mike!

[Sansome1877]

Yes I'm sure you will. I'll try to leave something behind so when you make it out here you can find it.

[crownzip]

Thanks for posting the great desert photos. Here's a photo I snapped hiking in the high desert near Baker, Nevada in early spring.

[SLAB]

beautiful scenery; hope to visit it down there one day as well

[markus]

Got my copy yesterday. Congratulations to you Mike. Well done. I like this old stuff. Greetings from Vienna

Markus

[rnrswitch]

^^ Damn! Two fine-looking gentleman.

Rnr, your denim (& duck) dedication in not to be questioned.

What'd you guys find?

Yeah, I bet you are really regretting that neg rep now huh? I will post some pics later this evening (hopefully) of the loot and also the adventure as a whole.

[roy6]

^Nope. You earned it.

[Sansome1877]

Great picture crownzip! Wondering what you were doing around Baker? Did you stop off on your way to Vegas? BTW if you ever make it down this way Slab look me up and I'll show you some desert hide outs.

[Sansome1877]

Markus good to see you got the book. Vienna Austria?

[markus]

Yes sir, Austria

[Sansome1877]

You could mistake this for the Greenebaum brothers, but if the leather reinforcement pieces come from the seam, it's the Wo patent. I've seen both Greenebaum and Wo use leather, denim and I would assume duck reinforcement pieces ( i've never seen them in duck) I think both Greenebaum and Wo had a advantage over most companies, Levi had the rivet and Greenbaum had the pantent for any kind of material that over lapped the pocket seem. This meant that Greenebaum brothers could make a regular pair of pants and slap leather triangles over the pocket corners ( not much harder than just adding a rivet) Wo, was a little more difficult to make, next to Greenebaum. Levi, Green and Wo enjoyed this advantage for only a few years. Some time in 1877 or 78 the Arrow head stitch came into play and I believe leveled the playing field. We have found this Arrow head stitch on 5 companies so far( arrow head stitch is on page 71) I think this is one of the reasons for the Greenebaum brothers teaming up with Sachs and Freeman in 1878. Well the research continues.

[rnrswitch]

Sansome, You should post that montage of your wife washing the denim that you brought back from your last trip. A lot of us would shutter at the process, but from what i gather, there is no real pretty way of washing 1870s denim.

[Sansome1877]

I have to say, rnrswitch and his father in law fit right in. These guys were laid back and fun to be around. We went on a 45 minute hike in 105*F weather, the steep canyons provided some shade. When we got 10 feet from the tunnel a blast of 65*F wind hits you. Some rest,water and food and we were good to go explore.

[Sansome1877]

Sansome, You should post that montage of your wife washing the denim that you brought back from your last trip. A lot of us would shutter at the process, but from what i gather, there is no real pretty way of washing 1870s denim.

Sounds like a good idea.

[crownzip]

Hi Mike, Thanks for posting the photos of your exploring. We were hiking in Great Basin National Park. It was off season so most days we saw no other hikers which was nice. Being a New Yorker I really fell in love with the wide open land. Yeah, we spent a couple nights in Las Vegas but I was more than happy to get outta Dodge.

[pacioli]

Those Cheang Quan Wo...

beautiful indigo...interesting, left hand twill. Is it really that bright of a blue? Does the leather have a little blue on it or is it the picture? Love the uneven stitching. A fine specimen.

Are all your CQ Wo pieces left hand twills?

[Sansome1877]

Those Cheang Quan Wo...

beautiful indigo...interesting, left hand twill. Is it really that bright of a blue? Does the leather have a little blue on it or is it the picture? Love the uneven stitching. A fine specimen.

Are all your CQ Wo pieces left hand twills?

I should check that out, glad you pointed that left hand twill out. I have a few pieces, two early split backs and one that has heavy denim. I don't think the leather is blue, and yes it's an amazing shade of blue.

[Sansome1877]

This looks like Alien Highway? If you haven't been on Alien Highway it's a real treat (open range for at least 100 miles) I don't suggest going on the highway at night (cows hang out next to the road and if you have a father in law that refuses to go slow, the threat of a cow coming through your windshield, makes the drive extra special!)

[eltopo]

Mike amazing photos!!! Always great to see stuff like that!!!!

[rnrswitch]

Those Cheang Quan Wo...

beautiful indigo...interesting, left hand twill. Is it really that bright of a blue? Does the leather have a little blue on it or is it the picture? Love the uneven stitching. A fine specimen.

Are all your CQ Wo pieces left hand twills?

I can't really tell from the pics, but does that look like 2x1 denim?

Sansome, Is this the pair of jeans that your wife had washed and noticed a lot of the indigo was coming off on the rag, more so than other denim? I believe it gave you guys the impression that the denim had been washed very few times if ever. I might be thinking of another piece you showed me.

[Sansome1877]

I can't really tell from the pics, but does that look like 2x1 denim?

Sansome, Is this the pair of jeans that your wife had washed and noticed a lot of the indigo was coming off on the rag, more so than other denim? I believe it gave you guys the impression that the denim had been washed very few times if ever. I might be thinking of another piece you showed me.

I think it is two by one denim, I showed this piece to you. It was the same piece that turned the white towel blue, from what I can remember,that's never happened before.

[Sansome1877]

I think this is the piece that you were talking about. It is light weight, some one should be able to tell if it's two by one denim?

[Sansome1877]

Mike amazing photos!!! Always great to see stuff like that!!!!

The denim or the desert cloud photos?

[eltopo]

The denim or the desert cloud photos?

Everything! I look forward to seeing more. The trip photos make me jealous. Thanks for posting everything!

[Sansome1877]

Everything! I look forward to seeing more. The trip photos make me jealous. Thanks for posting everything!

No problem , I have some really cool stuff coming up. Should be a bunch of old barns out in Ohio? Has to be some good stuff, out in your neck of the woods?

[rnrswitch]

I think this is the piece that you were talking about. It is light weight, some one should be able to tell if it's two by one denim?

That pant leg (top pick) is right hand twill. I wonder if it is from the same pair of pants. It almost can't be.

Also, the outer seam construction is very different than most selvedge denim jeans. Probably a stronger outseam.

[Sansome1877]

Yea I think your right, it has to be from a different pair of pants. I didn't take that many photos, of the new pieces. I'll take some more photos and watch out for the left hand twill.

[rnrswitch]

So my father-in-law and I had the pleasure of joining Mike and his family on a trip through some mines. Let me just say that his entire family was enthusiastic about finding old stuff in mines and it wasn’t because of the monetary worth of the objects they find, but more about an understanding of how miners and people in that era lived in general.

Below is some of the landscape of where we were. Basically the desert.

It was a blazing hot day, but it definitely did not stop me from wearing duck and denim. Also, Mike had mentioned that inside the mines it was a pretty constant 65 to 68 degrees, which was comfortable with the denim vest and long sleeve shirt.

The nitty gritty, the outfit: MF Signal Vest, MF chambray utility shirt, Alden Indy boots, and last and definitely not least the ROY cotton duck pants. (The ROY pants wanted to learn a little bit about where their great grand parents had grown up and I thought a trip to the desert mines would give them a good sense of history.)

A couple of poses for ya:

Me about ready to set out up the canyon.

Mike giving my father-in-law the old, “Well we’re gonna march up there and head into that canyon right there. That canyon has mines littered along the base. Right over there is where we found some yada yada yada.†You get the idea. Check out his DeadGrass Neustadter bros pants. They looked better and better as the day went on.

We drove the truck to the base of where we were going to hike up. We took a nice little stroll through a small canyon.

Stopping for some water along the way,

[rnrswitch]

To tell you the truth I was a little bit sketchy on going into the mines. You know cave-ins, collapses, etc. and when looking at the entrances of these mines my mind wasn’t settled much. The stories that Mike and his father-in-law didn’t help either. Mike told me not to worry about these mines, but that the mines the Chinese worked in were typically about 4ft tall and many times the workers needed to crawl in and out of them. Russ (mike’s father-in-law) was talking about times when he was wedging through a crawl space and the ceiling would crumble any time something brushed against it… very reassuring.

Some shots of the entrance of the main mine we went into:

The mines that we originally went into were not the mines we had intended on going into so we travelled further up the canyon to find the mines that Mike had in mind. He had scouted the area prior to us going up. After not finding the mines that Mike had seen before, mike’s wife and Russ had a barrage of comments about Mike’s navigational skills. Hahaha. So we headed back down the canyon where we had seen a few other mine entrances.

This is a picture out in front of where another few mines had been dug out. None of the mines led anywhere. It seems that whoever was digging didn’t find what they were looking for, but the result was like a honeycomb effect on the mountainside.

My father-in-law and me:

The trek back down the canyon seemed a lot longer than it did coming up. Some of the scenery.

Back at the site we looked over the loot.

[rnrswitch]

It is amazing at how blah the denim looked when we pulled it from the mine. At first I had some doubts about whether it was 1870s denim that we grabbed. Fresh from the mine some of the pieces looked like some over washed levis STF denim. Here are some pics of the scraps Mike was kind enough to let me bring home.

Candle holder:

Some good ole scraps.

Denim belt that we found. Mike assumed it was a belt, I would tend to agree. It looks like the perfect length to be able to tie around the waist. It is basically two long slices of denim from the leg of a pair of jeans tied together