A Boot Collector Feature
Brad Glenn left ranch work, talked a bootmaker into a two-week crash course, and built a shop that now ships boots across three states.
B.G. Leather Shop and Custom Boots — the initials are Brad Glenn's own — operates out of Cactus Alley near Lubbock's Marsha Sharp Freeway, in a circa-1968 strip center owned by Glenn's parents. Glenn got into bootmaking around 2012 after growing tired of ranch work: he tracked down Amarillo bootmaker John Higdon, who agreed to teach him on the condition that Glenn buy his own equipment first. Glenn bought a boot shop's worth of gear for $2,800 and completed a two-week training course with Higdon before launching his own business. A Texas Tech Museum exhibition on Lubbock's bootmaking history later credited Glenn as one of the makers carrying forward the innovations of the city's foundational bootmaker, Willie Lusk Jr.
Roughly 150 to 200 pairs a year built with assistant Matt Sager, about 90% of them repeat customers from the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The shop works in exotic hides — giraffe, elephant, and ostrich among them — sourced from suppliers as far as New Hampshire and Florida, and every pair carries an inscribed cross and Bible verse on the inner sole, reflecting Glenn's faith-driven approach to the craft.
A two-week crash course that grew into a 150-pair-a-year Lubbock shop.
Pairs from smaller, custom, or long-closed makers rarely come up for sale, so this search may not find anything. It’s worth checking back now and then.