That Rare Craftsman, the American Boot Maker Hits Comeback Trail

The attic workshop has almost a Charles Dickens atmosphere. But instead of candles there are fluorescent lights. Instead of account books and ledgers, there are crates of leather and shelves of wooden and fiberglass shoe forms.

The proprietor also seems out of the past.

This is the shop of Gary Anglin, 44, short, powerful, bespectacled, plain-talking. Anglin is one of a group of craftsmen that had all but vanished two decades ago but is on the way back--the American boot maker.

Anglin works as he talks, his blunt, strong fingers delicately tracing scallops and loops and whorls into a piece of leather that will eventually become a boot top.

Anglin’s shop is just above the main floor of the Palmer Saddle Shop where owner Bob Boyd, a large, bearlike man, makes and repairs saddles for southwestern Colorado’s considerable number of cowhands and horse fanciers.

It was at age 38, when Anglin moved to San Angelo, Tex., that he learned to make boots. He had set up a small saddle shop. Anglin and a friend, Bob Castleberry, who had worked for the M.L. Leddy Boot Co. for more than 40 years, began to trade knowledge.

Castleberry wanted to know more about making saddles, and Anglin wanted to learn boot making.

Anglin began making boots full time when he moved to Colorado several years ago.

“I don’t know, I suppose there’s about 125 custom boot makers in the country right now, and maybe three or four in Colorado,” Anglin says, finishing the pattern tracing.

He moves to a stitching machine and begins the precise task of sewing rows of fine thread into the soft brown leather. Peering through magnifying glasses, he turns the leather until he has worked five rows into the design.

“It takes about six weeks--or as long as I want it to--even if you’re in a great big hurry,” he says. “I guess I turn out about 250 pair a year.

“These are for a dentist in Durango.”

Anglin’s art doesn’t come cheap. A pair of his handmade boots costs $350, minimum. But the result is a boot made from fine, soft, durable leather, built from measurements taken from toe to heel, ankle to knee.

He has made boots that cost $2,000 a pair.

On his shelves are 250 pairs of boot “lasts,” or forms for boot bottoms, ranging from size 4A to 13EEE.

In storage are rolls of leather, not only from ordinary, run-of-the-mill range cows, but from ostrich farms and alligator farms or anything else that might suit your fancy if you want fancy boots.

Ostrich is delicate to work with, but is comfortable and hard to wear out. Ordinary steer leather is versatile. Alligator is fancy. Elephant is now protected and all but impossible--and illegal--to obtain. Shark is tough.

“About 30% of my business is from working cowhands,” Anglin says. “The rest are for people who want boots they can wear with tuxedos or into executive boardrooms. They want something that fits, that is comfortable, that won’t hurt your back.”

Hurt your back?

“Yes sir. I think a pair of good-fitting boots gets you standing up more correctly.”

Texas cowhands like a top that comes just under the knee. They like what is called a “spur shelf” at the top of the heel, where a spur band will sit and not slip down on the heel. A spur shelf also protects the back of the heel from being scuffed by a pickup truck’s gritty floor mat.

Texas-born, Anglin moved to Sanger, Calif., not far from Fresno, as a boy and became a boot maker because he wanted a fancy saddle. There were lots of horses and lots of saddles in the Fresno area, and Anglin recalled that when he was 9 he saw a Visalia Saddle Co. catalogue featuring a “California roper with 12-inch swells and wild rose stamping.”

Swells are the bulges in the front of the saddle that hold the rider in place when a horse becomes unruly. Wild rose stamping is a flower design that is tapped into damp leather, then allowed to raise and dry. When it is oiled and polished it becomes an intricate bas-relief work of art.

“That saddle cost $765 then. Now you can’t touch anything plain for under $900, and that’s one made by somebody that’s not real good. That same Visalia today would cost you $2,200, maybe more.”

Anglin eventually learned to make saddles as a teen-ager, and he made a duplicate of the one he coveted in the catalogue. Does he still have it?

“Nope. Wasn’t satisfied. Sold it to a friend. Figured if I built the perfect saddle I’d keep it.”

Has he?

“Nope.”

The smell of leather pervades the shop.

Anglin takes pride in his hand-tooled boot tops. Nearby are two pairs of cowboy “lace-ups,” or cowboy boots built with tops that lace up to the knee. One pair features light brown leather overlay patterns stitched on dark brown tops, with high, underslung heels and rounded toes.

Another features red tops on black bottoms.

“Those are for a real, old-timey working cowboy,” Anglin notes.

He picks up an old boot, badly in need of repair, with the sole curiously worn out on one side, scarcely worn on the other. Someone has attempted to fix it.

“Somebody didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Anglin says, “but I think we can do it. This fella’s crippled in one leg. That’s why it’s worn this way. He likes these old boots and can’t stand to throw them away.”

“I guess I’ll do this as long as I can,” he says. “I like it. It gets you tired, though. Right now my shoulder’s kind of hurting.”

He is asked whether that is from bending over a stitching machine, concentrating on fine rows of thread.

“Na. It’s from arm-wrestling that apprentice kid from downstairs. I usually beat him, but last week something snapped.”