A Southern Railway local passes the harness plant of Bona Allen., at Buford Ga., over much the same route traveled by trains of Southern's predecessor, the Atlanta and Charlotte Air-Line Railway, when the tannery was founded in 1873.

Automobiles frightened more than horses when they' began to appear in large numbers on the American scene.

Harness makers and saddlers, fearful, began to close up their businesses. But Bona Allen, Inc., of Buford, Ga., did not.

This firm, established in 1873, operated a tannery and leather goods factory. Its management met the business threat of the motor age with an assurance that has paid off handsomely.

With the fainthearted out of the field, Bona Allen began to get orders from new customers, firms and individuals that had been buying from these other, no-longer-in-business manufacturers.

Hides earlier soaked in a lime solution to loosen the hair, have been scraped and trimmed and are being dipped in a neutralizing liquid.

True, there wasn't enough demand, to support the industry on the scale of pre-Model T days. But concentration of the few scattered users of saddles, bridles, harnesses and horse collars proved enough to keep Bona Allen well supplied with orders.

Today the 86-year-old tannery and leather goods factory may well be the largest of its kind in the country. Stanley Allen, grandson of the founder and secretary-treasurer of the company, puts it this way: "If there's a larger one, we've never heard of it."

In the huge, ground-floor "tanning yard" racks of hides are left soaking in bark liquor for a period of 40 days. This is only one of two dozen processes in leather tanning.

As the company's rail link with suppliers, Southern Railway brings in most of the factory's raw materials. `Each year it delivers to the company's siding several hundred carloads of cowhides from stockyards in the Midwest. Other rail shipments include large quantities of coal, lime, tanning extract and miscellaneous supplies.

Southern and its predecessor lines have served Bona hide in 1873. The same year the company was founded, the Atlanta and Charlotte Air-Line Railway opened a rail line between those two cities. The Richmond & Danville later leased the line which Southern took over as the R&D's successor and now operates as part of its Charlotte division.

Bona Allen's two major divisions, each housed in a separate building several stories high and a block long, represent a blend of the present and the past. Modern machinery is evident throughout the tannery division, but a great deal of hand labor is still necessary in converting tough, stiff, hair-covered cowhides into smooth, flexible sheets of leather .

In the "harness" factory a designation carried over from the heyday of the horse and buggy) the majority of the plant is devoted to manufacturing riding equipment. Here, highly-skilled craftsmen (and women) painstakingly cut, stitch and hand-tool the high quality Bona Allen leather especially made to withstand rugged use. Saddles, bridles, halters, harnesses, stirrups, and a dozen or more different kinds of riding accessories are cut and assembled in this section.

The company takes special pride in its saddle making. In a year's time, some 30,000 to 35,000 saddles are produced and sold both in and outside the United States. Its catalog lists 86 different models ranging from simple jump saddles to heavy, ornate "westerns:' The latter carry such sagebrush-scented names as "Rio Chico," "Cheyenne Chief," "Texas Quarter Horse," and "Cow Country."

In the saddle-making section dozens of employees demonstrate that the art of leather craft still lives.

Southern each year delivers to Bona AlIen's siding several hundred carloads of cow hides which the tannery buys from stockyards in the Midwest.

While some designs can be stamped by machine to give the appearance of hand-tooling, the majority of Bona Allen's saddles carry the label "fully hand carved." This means hours of work with mallet and stamping tools have gone into carving the intricate floral designs traditional for western saddles.

To the layman, a saddle may appear to be nothing more than a few pieces of leather tacked or riveted to a wooden frame. But an average saddle requires 128 different manufacturing operations. Cost may run well over a hundred dollars. Small wonder that cowboys as portrayed in TV westerns will shoulder their saddles for miles when their horses are crippled or shot.

Oddly enough in this age of the two-car family, the demand for saddles is growing-principally in the West and Midwest. A recent request for a catalog from Belgium indicates how widely known the Bona Allen name has become.

While the saddlery is considered the "glamour" end of the business, the tannery continues to form the financial backbone of the company. The current output of the tannery is more than 700 hides a day with about half being consumed in the harness factory and the rest sold to other leather users. A number of well known sporting goods firms are among the company's customers.

In the huge, ground-floor "tanning yard" racks of hides are left soaking in bark liquor for a period of 40 days. This is only one of two dozen processes in leather tanning.

In tanning, as in saddle-making, patience is more a necessity than a virtue. Over two dozen operations are needed to turn out a strip of shoe-sole leather alone, while still more work is put into turning out leather for ladies' handbags, suitcases 'and similar articles, and for footballs and other types of sporting equipment. One of the basic processes, tanning the leather, requires about 40 days.

When a hide is prepared for tanning, the hair and other waste products are salvaged. The hair is sold for use as stuffing in upholstered furniture while scraps and scrapings from the hide are converted into glue.

Bona Allen is Buford's chief industry, employing from 500 to 600 men and women. Many of the workers are descended from those who began with the company when it was founded.

All of the present officers and owners of the company are direct descendants of the founder, Bona Allen. Two sons, Bona Allen, Jr., and John Q. Allen, are president and vice-president, respectively. John's son, Stanley, is secretary-treasurer.

According to John Allen, the coming of the railroad to Buford influenced his father in locating the tannery on its present site.

Bonaparte Allen, who preferred the shorter version "Bona," was 27 years old when he'formed his tannery. At first he began producing only leather but within a few years he was turning out finished whiplashes. This was followed by the production of horse collars and as the business steadily expanded the tanner added other leather articles to be sold under Bona Allen labels.

In 1903, when the company was 30 years old and well on the way to becoming one of the foremost harness factories in the country, a fire swept through the frame buildings and completely destroyed the tannery. Not only did Allen lose about a half-million uninsured dollars he had invested in the firm but Allen's reputation as a manufacturer and business man was so highly regarded that a local bank offered him any amount he chose to borrow to re-establish his business. It wasn't long before he had paid off his loans and again had a thriving business, this time fully insured.

Bona Allen died in 1925 and left the firm in the hands of his three sons, Bona, Jr., John and Victor. Under their management .the company continued to follow the founder's policy of producing what he firmly believed was the best leather in the nation.

The business depression of the early thirties found the firm busier than ever. Farmers who could no longer afford new tractors re-discovered the horse drawn plow. As a result, the Allens' harness business boomed and a nationally circulated magazine of the period acclaimed Buford as "Georgia's depressio proof town.

The trio of brothers continued at the head of the company until the death of Victor, secretary-treasurer and youngest of the three, in 1939. Stanley Allen succeeded him, representing the third generation of Allens to enter the firm.

From the time Bona Allen established his tannery within a few yards of Atlanta and Charlotte Air-Line tracks, he concentrated his knowledge and resources on turning out first a high grade leather and, later, quality products manufactured. from it.

The years have brought changes-to the plant and to the railroad. Many of the manual operations of leather-making have been mechanized. Southern diesels serve the plant now instead of the high stacked wood-burners of a bygone day.

But some things have not changed. Transportation of the company's raw materials still benefits from the founder's decision to locate his tannery near the tracks of a growing railroad. And Allen's descendants still follow his successful business formula of quality and craftsmanship.