The Towells have ranched in the Midvale area since his great grandfather, Alexander Towell, homesteaded there in 1881. He and his wife, Celia, ranched and raised their family less than a mile from his great grandfather’s homestead. He made his first knife, a hunting knife for his son, in 1966.

        In 2004 Towell retired from raising cattle hay and alfalfa — his son-in-law handles the ranching now — to devote himself full-time to knifemaking. At 76, he still looks like the rancher he is — jeans, flannel shirts, Western hat — and still works in his shop every day.

        He starts by drawing a design on paper. Then he outlines the knife’s shape with a carbide-tipped scriber on a bar of steel and cuts it with a bandsaw. That’s followed by grinding and sanding with ever finer sandpaper, ending with a hand-rubbed finish.

        Towell engraves the knives with help from a microscope and air-driven graver tools. The finished product can include gold, jade, Seraphinite, springbok antler, or other exotic components.