Baughman's Western Wear: A Downtown Livermore (CA) Classic

What would downtown Livermore be without Baughman's? The venerable Western-wear store - Livermore's oldest - first opened its doors in 1881 as Victor & Harris.

"It was established by two partners, one by the name of Victor, the other by the name of Harris," says current owner Rory Janes. "Shortly after that, a young man by the name of Baughman came there to work."

Harris eventually encountered health problems and sold his interest in the store to Baughman. The store then became Victor & Baughman, a name still noted in a leaded glass skylight of the Proctor's building - the store's former location, which is across the street from its current digs at 2029 First Street.

Janes' father bought the store in the early 1960s. Janes worked there for about a decade before buying it in the early 1980s. Today it has many of the same goods and services that it did more than a hundred years ago, along with more contemporary offerings. "It's a traditional Western-wear store, so you find all the things that you'd expect such as Western hats and boots, of course, but we also carry equestrian equipment that you would use on working Western applications," he says. "So (we have items for) people who are cattle ranching, or maybe just for recreation if it were horse-related. We have supplies for horses as well, everything but the saddle."

In addition to clothing, Baughman's carries cowboy hats, boots, and English-style riding gear at reasonable prices. "If you wanted to do head-to-toe traditional Western wear, you could probably do it here for less than $200," he says. "That includes an entry-level type of shirt, hat, belt, and jeans, and of course, you could spend maybe three or four times that if you wanted to go top-drawer. We have the entire range, from inexpensive entry-level all the way up to the top. ... .We also carry a pretty big supply of work clothing. Western wear is pretty rugged in its design, so we have a big work-clothing department. We have heavy outer-wear, work boots, and work-related bottoms and tops that are reasonably priced and very functional."

Baughman's is complemented by Christesen's, its sister store on Main Street in downtown Pleasanton. Though Christesen's stock is similar to Baughman's, its clientele tends to differ. "We don't get a lot of what you might call high-profile people at Baughman's," Janes says. "We get them more over in Pleasanton."

Instead, Baughman's lower-key clientele tends to mirror the Livermore community. Mixed in with ranchers are suburbanites interested in the rough-and-tumble life as a hobby, and Janes welcomes them all. "It's really broad now," Janes says. "In addition to the ranchers we get, we have a lot of recreational horse aficionados."

As Livermore's oldest store, Baughman's has been party to the many changes taking place in the community over the years. Over time, Janes has seen many of his longtime clients move to outlying areas due to spikes in real estate prices. "They could sell here and buy cheaper land north or east of here," he says. "That's been an ongoing saga."

Still the nature of Western wear keeps Baughman's as connected to the past as it is committed to the future. "The fact that Western wear is timeless and sort of has a historic imprint on this country keeps it popular for the general public," Janes says. "It's fun to wear on weekends. And, of course, Western music has an occasional concertgoer, so we offer accessories for (Western-music fans) to head to the concert of their choice."

Of course, Baughman's has been around a long time, and with time often comes humor. Janes has more than one funny anecdote to relate. "I don't want to use the term tacky," he says, "But we have a full-sized fiberglass horse that we put out every day. It resides outside in front of the store to let people know we're open."

But one day that horse took a powder.

"I think some kids took it on a quiet Thursday night. They decided to kidnap the horse. It was a high-school prank, and it made front-page news the next day," Janes says.

A few days later, Livermore police got a phone call from a woman who lived on the edge of the city and had spotted an odd sight in her back pasture.

"She called police," Janes says, "because out in her horse pasture, even though she didn't own a horse any more, there'd been a horse standing there."

Sure enough, it was the Baughman's fiberglass mare. Police were dispatched and the false beast was recovered, roped up, and brought back to its rightful home. A few years ago, it was named "Charley Horse" in a radio contest held by Baughman's.

"It was a young man who gave it that name," Janes says. "He won $500 for doing so."