The Heart of the Leather Making Region

Our theme for 2025 has been Put the Extra in Extraordinary.
Our team is certainly EXTRA, and all of us together, and what we craft is truly extraordinary. 

But, there is one thing in particular that stands out, that really makes us extra, and that is our heart. 

Our heart. 

Our center. 

It is what makes us Townsend. It is what makes us last for 56 years now, with some employees having been here for 45! years or more! And like Townsend’s own long history, the whole region has a long history.

Leather has a long and storied past in our area.

Upstate New York became the world’s largest supplier of leather gloves for a time. The area has had leather craft in its soul for hundreds of years. This is because of the old-growth forests of hemlock trees that were used for traditional leather tanning, the vast farmland area that is conducive to dairy farms and happy cattle, the pristine waters flowing from the Adirondack Mountains, and the hearty craft-focused people who wanted to create something useful, long-lasting, and beautiful.

So Upstate New York, specifically the foothills of the Adirondacks, has become near and far as the leather making region.

And the center of that region?
Townsend Leather.

Townsend Leather is figuratively and literally at the heart of the leather making region.

We are proud of our history and proud of our place in the rich story of leather. We are especially proud to be the heart of it all. We are still in the same building that was built by hand by “Red” Kucel and his friends. We are still crafting leather with old-world techniques and knowledge, but are also looking forward incorporating cutting-edge technology and crafting the world’s finest upholstery leather in the highest of quality, with heart.