Minnesota-based Buffalo Billfold Co.’s bison leather products gain national fanbase

WORTHINGTON, MINN. – It took more than 50 years for the Buffalo Billfold Co. to become an overnight success.

Even as proprietors Bill and Lauri Keitel celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this year, the hands-on creators and marketers of handmade bison leather goods — wallets, portfolios, belts, purses, bags and more — didn’t expect the level of attention and sales volume they’re now enjoying.

“We opened the day before Thanksgiving in 1972,” said Bill Keitel, 72. “And now our products are being sold in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History gift shop.”

Long respected in southwest Minnesota for quality, American-made leather goods, the Worthington-based company that began its journey as Cows’ Outside has evolved into a nationally known purveyor of bison leather items.

Initially designed and produced solely by the husband-wife team, the company changed its name in the early 2000s after swapping cow hides for bison hides for its products.

The company was catapulted into the national eye last December when Buffalo Billfold Co. was spotlighted on a 26-second segment on ABC News’ national broadcast of anchor David Muir’s “Made in America Christmas” feature. The result: tens of thousands of website hits and thousands of new orders for the small-town entrepreneurs.

Jim Brandenburg, renowned nature photographer, environmentalist, filmmaker and Buffalo Billfold enthusiast wasn’t surprised by the admiration.

“I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner,” Brandenburg said, “Their products are beautiful.”

Both Brandenburg, 78, and Bill Keitel grew up in Luverne — the Rock County seat that’s home to Blue Mounds State Park. The two even played in the same ‘60s rock band, Starfires, albeit six years apart.

Bill Keitel’s dad was a lieutenant colonel in the Army and war veteran; his mother was a female Marine. Keitel, the second of his parents’ four children and their only son, was preordained to become an optometrist like his father and four uncles.

But after graduating from Luverne High School in 1970 and spending a short stint at what is now the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, Keitel knew that life wasn’t for him.

“I ended up in Worthington, but because I had hippie-like long hair, I couldn’t get hired at Campbell Soup [production facility]. I got a job at a shoe repair shop and discovered how much I enjoyed working with my hands,” he said.

The local podiatry school made plenty of orders for custom orthopedic inserts, and Keitel found it rewarding that his handiwork helped people function more effectively.

“And that was my introduction to leatherwork,” he said.

He met Lauri, from Fergus Falls and St. Peter, when she moved to Worthington to help her sister and brother-in-law open a convenience store.

“Dad went in to buy detergent and mom thought it was cool a guy was doing his own laundry,” said their son, Noah Keitel.

The convenience store didn’t last, but the Keitels’ romance did. Soon Lauri was working with him making hand-tooled bags, “like hippies would do,” Bill Keitel said.

By the late 1970s, the pair bought a 1901 building at 326 10th St. that was originally a bank; it’s been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982 and is still home to their workshop and retail store.

Bill quickly realized that, to make a living, the labor-intensive hand tooling must be replaced by products they could turn out and sell in larger quantities.

“We recognized that adaptability was the key,” Bill said. “If you don’t adapt, you won’t survive. But I was always filled with reflection and a slight amount of doubt; overconfidence wasn’t one of my mainstays.”

Noah Keitel and his younger sister, Hannah, weren’t fully aware as children of the ups and downs their parents faced in the changeable business climate of the late ‘80s and ‘90s.

“I watched them go through good times and bad and we saw them weather downturns in the economy that forced them to pivot and grow their business in different ways,” Noah said.

“But I never worried because they always presented information to me and my sister in ways that were exciting and adventurous, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to try this new thing and take a trip to Wyoming.’”

A successful trip to a National Bison Association annual meeting in Gillette, Wyo., 27 years ago convinced the Keitels to make bison products their primary pursuit.

“We took a minivan full of merchandise and lo and behold, we sold out,” said Keitel.

Soon they had products in art galleries and several national and state parks (including Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Custer and Death Valley), and the Keitels began spending three months each winter traveling to juried art festivals across the United States.

The Keitels gradually expanded their production team (now with 10 artisans, including themselves), improved efficiencies and increased their capacity while continuing to craft everything by hand.

“We’re fortunate to have the best leather smiths in the Midwest working with us,” Bill said. “And the buffalo hides we use are tanned to suit with a ‘special recipe’ that works for us.”

It also works for loyal customers like Stephen Lagaza, a Pennsylvania automotive technician who has been one of Buffalo Billfold’s highest volume individual retail customers for over a decade.

“I found Bill’s shop while looking online for a made-in-the-USA wallet,” Lagaza said. “The Buffalo Billfold products are among the best I’ve ever found.”

Noah Keitel assumed the company’s website management in 2012, helping increase sales 28% to 40% annually. But since last December’s ABC News feature and subsequent Smithsonian gift shop placement, the company has increased its wholesale accounts from 41 to 162.

“We still maintain a retail presence in Worthington, but over 90 percent of our products are now sold on the Internet,” Bill Keitel said.

“We’re so grateful — to our community, our staff, our customers and our family,” Bill Keitel said. “It’s due to the unflagging patronage from residents of Worthington and the surrounding communities that we were able to earn a living as leather workers in a town of 10,000 people.”

“The Keitels are authentic, true and impassioned,” Brandenburg said. “In times of so much plastic and corporate-ness, Bill and Lauri stand out in a very conspicuous and beautiful way.”