Legacies in Leather
The hearts and soles of Texas bootmakers
The iconic footwear of Texas has left tracks across the state’s heritage and culture from the Chisholm Trail to current-day cowgirl chic. Boots.
You’ll find them on the feet of politicians, poets laureate and pop stars. And unlike many heritage crafts, the bootmaking legacy isn’t at risk of fading away.
Legacy brands such as Nocona, Lucchese and Justin have long provided mass-market Western footwear. While factory tours of Texas boot manufacturers are no longer a practical option, there are numerous destinations where visitors can still experience these iconic boots.
Big business in boots
Lucchese Boot Company was established in San Antonio in 1883 by Italian immigrant bootmaker Sam Lucchese. The family made footwear for a wide-ranging clientele, from Fort Sam Houston soldiers to Hollywood celebrities to LBJ. In 1970 Blue Bell and its parent company Wrangler bought Lucchese, and in 1983 the boot company moved to El Paso. Today Lucchese retail stores in Houston, San Antonio and Austin carry the high-end brand. There’s even a Dallas custom showroom — open only by appointment — and two factory outlet stores in El Paso.
Investor Warren Buffett is also in the Texas boot business. His firm Berkshire Hathaway owns the famous boot brands Nocona, Justin and Tony Lama. Justin Boots started in Nocona in 1889 by “Daddy Joe” Justin and his wife, Annie, to capitalize on the railroad expansion into Nocona. When Daddy Joe died in 1918 and the rest of the family wanted to move the company to Fort Worth, daughter Enid felt so strongly that her father would want the business to remain where it was that she stayed behind and started Nocona Boots there. In 1981, Nocona Boots merged with Justin Industries, parent company of Justin Boots at the time, bringing the bootmaking histories of the two family companies full circle. The Nocona plant was shut down in 1999 and production was moved to El Paso.
But the Nocona boot story doesn’t end there.
A repurposing success is in the making in Nocona, where once again fans can shop for Nocona boots at the Old Nocona Boot Factory. In September 2016, Leigha Morgan and hus- band Craig Carter bought the 106,000-square- foot manufacturing facility and in February 2017 opened a retail store that sells the eponymous brand. Other plans for the rest of the space include a non-profit food bank, community center, auction facility, coffee shop and micro- brewery.
Boots on the ground
If travelers want to see boots being created — especially by hand — their best bet is to visit a small, local boot shop.
Some Texas bootmakers’ benches date back more than a century, and a new generation of artisans — having apprenticed with the older masters — are making their mark in a mere decade or two. They often set up their original shops where the customers were.
In Amarillo, for instance, lore has it that cowboys driving cattle to the stockyards in Kansas would stop over on the way back home to Texas and buy a new pair of boots for the next year’s work.
“By 1930, there were at least 30 boot- makers in Amarillo, primarily on 5th Avenue west of downtown,” says Michael Grauer of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon. “Initially the bootmaker would drive a buggy out to the ranches to trace and measure cowboys’ feet. Later, as Amarillo’s bootmaking capacity increased, cowboys could come into town and have their feet traced and measured for custom-made boots because off-the-shelf boots weren’t available until the 1950s. Most cowboys could afford only one pair of boots — and when a boot needed repair they’d bring it to their bootmaker and sit outside the shop on a bench in their sock feet smoking cigarettes and telling stories and lies. On Saturdays, sometimes there would be a dozen cowboys sitting just like this outside the boot shops.”
Thirty handcrafted five- and-a-half-foot-tall cowboy boots are dispersed throughout the city, each colorfully painted with the insignia of a college or university around the state, country and even Mexico.
Western Leather Craft Boot Co.
Amarillo
One of those was Western Leather Craft of Amarillo, where since 1919 someone with the surname of Ross has made custom boots. D.V. Ross’s original shop was located at 16th and Polk, in the city’s northern retail row. Nearby on 16th, says grandson Bob Ross, rancher and oilman Don Harrington was known to entertain luminaries on occasion. One day Clark Gable strolled over to the Ross shop to be fitted for a pair of boots. A crowd of camera-wielding onlookers soon gathered. One woman noted the physical likeness of the dark-haired Ross to the famous actor. “But he’s better looking,” she said of the bootmaker.
D.V. Ross’ grandson, Charles Ross, younger than his brother Bob by some 17 years, can slide a volume from the numbered stack and find, in its index, the outline tracing of a customer’s foot — along with precise measurements, and a description and price of the pair purchased that time.
These days, a fifth generation of Rosses carries on the bootmaking tradition. Charles’ daughter Hailey, a student at Tascosa High, is learning the trade.
“It’s a craft,” Bob notes, “that takes patience to learn and time to perfect.” He once calculated that a single pair might require 30 to 40 hours — partly because the leather, at each stage, must be worked wet and allowed to dry. “There’s two ways you can go to hell in the boot business,” he says. “And one of ’em is to work dry leather.” (He never revealed the second.)
James Leddy Boots
Abilene
Abilene, too, served cowboys on far-flung ranch- es. At James Leddy Boots on U.S. 83 north of town, current owners Al and Deborah Dos Santos are more than happy to provide tours of the legendary shop founded by the nephew of Fort Worth’s M. L. Leddy.
The Dos Santoses purchased James Leddy Boots in 2008. Before coming to Abilene they owned the second-largest boot factory in Zimbabwe before it was nationalized. Bringing 52 years of bootmaking in Portugal and Zimbabwe to West Texas, they still use Leddy’s historic patterns as well as some of their own designs. For their Safari boot, for instance, they hold exclusive U.S. sales rights.
At James Leddy Boots in Abilene, custom boots are made according to careful measurements. Receipt books document purchases (some for celebrity customers) dating back to the 1920s.
Mercedes Boot Company
Ben Wheeler
Mercedes Boot Company isn’t in Mercedes now, but it was when Rod Patrick founded it in 1975. Patrick is known in bootmaking circles for intro- ducing the full round toe and double-stitched welt after considering the double row of stitching on one of his saddles.
The company was sold in 1989 and relocated to Fort Worth, where it remained for the next 23 years. When the Trinity River Vision Authority assumed the shop’s property for a major bridge project, Mercedes Boots relocated to the small East Texas town of Ben Wheeler, located between Canton and Tyler on Highway 64, about 11 miles south of Interstate 20.
“Our boots are designed for people who make their living in, and wear, boots every day, all day long,” company president Debby Farr says. “We make everything from oil-tanned work boots to the exquisite American Alligator. We actually make every skin that’s legal.”
Farr notes that Mercedes Boots has four custom boot-makers who run the shop like a well-oiled machine, paying strict attention to the over 250 steps in crafting a pair of boots by hand. The factory and showroom located in Ben Wheeler is the one and only place to get a custom-made pair of Mercedes boots. “Our customers want something different and of course, personalized,” Farr says. “It’s common for people to fly in from all over the country, rent a car in Dallas and make the drive to Ben Wheeler.” Their best-known celebrity customer? Entertainer Reba McEntire, who’s been known to drop a few dollars.
Native American boots hand-crafted by Mercedes Boot Company.
Candela Boot Company
Columbus
“I told my wife I wanted to be a bootmaker, so she told me to go make a pair of boots,” explains Mark Candela of Candela Boot Company, which began operation a dozen years ago. Candela knew he needed to study under a master if he wanted to combine his passions for art, Western wear and leather, so he pursued Lee Miller of Texas Traditions in Austin. He further honed his craft under the legendary Dave Wheeler of Houston. Candela started out of a makeshift shop in the pump house on his property. Given his small shop and out-of-town location, he developed the business model of traveling to his clients. Taking his road show of skin samples to his clients in their homes and in their offices is a model Candela Boots still offers today.
“We travel to Houston, Austin, San Antonio,” Candela says. “During our client visits, we work through skin selection and design and do a complete fitting. It’s a personal experience our customers really enjoy. We then hand deliver the boots to our customers when finished to ensure the fit.”
Candela builds one pair of boots at a time by hand, with the assistance of one other boot- maker.
Legendary boot maker Dave Wheeler mentoring Mark Candela.
Tres Outlaws
El Paso
Scott Wayne Emmerich, “Bootmaker to the Stars,” begins his pricey custom creations in a Sun City workshop, but the boots find their way to his Falconhead retail store in the tony Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Beginning three decades ago, Emmerich sought out master bootmakers to help craft elaborate designs featuring exotic leathers, hand- stitching as wide as 25 rows, braided kangaroo- skin piping and silver inlays built into the boot. Clients have included actresses Brooke Shields, Jamie Lee Curtis and Renée Zellweger, rocker Sheryl Crow and talent agent Michael Ovitz.
“I used to have two partners,” Emmerich says, “but now it’s just me, so, it’s Uno Outlaws.” Will his glamorous legacy extend to another genera- tion? Emmerich has no apprentices, and no off- spring to whom he might pass along his talents. “When I’m gone, it’s done,” he says.
Emmerich does fittings by mail order using a foam foot mold. Better get ’em while you can.
Making more than boots — making a difference
As one of the oldest custom boot-making shops in the state, Amarillo’s Western Leather Craft Boot Shop has carved more than heels. The Rosses have also carved a tradition of caring in the Panhandle.
The family has long been affiliated with Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch, a relationship that dates back to the organization’s beginnings, when the Ross boot shop was located in Farley’s building in Amarillo.
For the past decade, the current generation of Rosses has worked with a local benefactor on a new tradition: they craft a pair of blue- top boots for each graduating Boys Ranch boy and girl. Those proud, brightly colored boots can be spotted a long ways off — as Charles did once in a Panhandle snowstorm when the hand- crafted shanks of those boots easily identified the affiliation of the wearer.
They’ll probably keep his feet warm and dry until his next big class reunion, too.
