Young Man in an Old World:
A West Texas Blacksmith’s Story
Story by
Phyllis Dunham
Photographs by
Jennifer Boomer
I
t is a remarkable thing when an old-
timer hangs on to the ancient craft of
blacksmithing in a time of mecha-
nization and shoddy mass production.
But it is an extraordinary thing, indeed,
when a young man picks up archaic tools
and turns his hands to the shaping and
melding of iron. As the modern world
whizzes past, that’s what 30-year-old
Todd Ellrod does: He practices a craft
that hasn’t changed all that much since
the ancient peoples armed with iron
weapons started kicking the bejeezus out
of the peoples armed with bronze.
Historically, the blacksmith was a
revered figure. The Greeks made a god of
him, Hephaestus, who toiled making
tools and weapons in the base of a vol-
cano. The Romans called him Vulcan,
and he was the maker of the thunderbolts
that Zeus hurled to control the world.
The blacksmith made the andirons that
allowed fire to move indoors and the pots
and tools of the ancient kitchen. On the
American frontier, this central figure kept
the horses and oxen shod and made the
tools that enabled the coopers and cob-
blers and carpenters to practice their
trades. The Comanche who crossed the
Big Bend for the better part of the 19th
century to raid settlements in northern
Mexico often killed entire villages, spar-
10
At his anvil: “Metal only heats so
fast, and can only be worked in
certain ranges. You have to respect
its properties,” says Ellrod.
ing only the valuable blacksmiths, whom
they captured for trade purposes and to
refit their inferior firearms.
Time was when no serious ranch
would be without a blacksmith shop. But
modern blacksmiths must find new ways
to practice their art and new markets for
their work, becoming highly specialized
in a particular area. Adapting an
anachronistic craft to the modern world is
a challenge, and making a living at it is
not easy, but the older blacksmiths who
have managed to create specialized nich-
es for themselves are surviving, and Todd
Ellrod is finding his place among them.
I first met Todd when I needed a sign
frame made for the front of my store on
Holland Avenue in Alpine – a frame
intended to withstand the brutal winds
and keep that sign from potentially
decapitating a passerby or, at the very
least, from blowing halfway to Marathon
on a mid-March gust. Wrought iron was
just the material needed, but who to
shape it? Someone handed me Todd’s
phone number.
The folksy drawl coming through my
phone assured me, “Yes ma’am, I can
make you a good, strong sign frame, but
it takes a while and it might be kind of
expensive.” When he showed up the next
day, I was surprised by his youth and his
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2012
slow, relaxed demeanor. After measuring
the sign, assessing the situation and draw-
ing up an initial sketch, Todd returned a
couple of times with versions that the
building owner didn’t approve, but Todd
kept at it patiently until all three parties
(the blacksmith, the building owner and
me) were satisfied. The final rendition
was sturdy, practical and beautiful, and,
although my shop has been gone for
three years now, that sign frame will prob-
ably hang there and continue to be used
by those who will occupy the building for
decades to come. It was made to endure.
The steady patience that Todd dis-
played, I have come to know, is a trade-
mark of blacksmiths. The work is slow
and dirty and hot and not for the faint-
hearted. Or as Todd says, “You have to
be a little different to want to stand next
to a multi-thousand degree fire and shape
metal.” I believe it. To be honest, I could-
n’t always tell what Todd was doing when
I visited his shop. As he lit forges, heated
iron to glowing states, removed it and
pounded on it for a while, cooled it and
reheated it and rolled it along anvil tops, I
was missing the point entirely.
While I was still steadfastly planted in
a modern time frame, Todd seemed to be
operating on geologic time. “Phyllis,
metal only heats so fast and can only be
worked in certain ranges. You have to
respect its properties,” he says. “It’s an art
to know when a piece of metal is at its
manipulating point, when its atoms are
loose and what you can and can’t do with
it during that time.” I could only see
progress over days and weeks – as curves
and dimples emerged and were joined
with other curves and dimples to form
complex shapes and practical, gracefully
formed articles like gates and coat racks
and guitar stands. I now see that an
hour’s visit is a nanosecond in the black-
smith’s world.
That some of the first objects Todd
found success with were guitar stands is
not surprising. He plays harmonica with
the local band the Doodlin’ Hogwallops,
and he knows a lot of musicians. He has
shipped custom guitar stands all over the
country, but he seems particularly proud of
one of his first pieces, the combination
guitar/fiddle stand that he made for musi-
cian Doug Moreland of Fort Davis. An
item like that is special for its owner and
made to fit his needs exactly. They’re not
making such things on assembly lines in
China, and, if they did, well, how long
might such a thing last through an evening
of raucous honky-tonking anyway?
So how did Todd get started in the first
place? When he was a student at Sul Ross