A Boot Collector Feature
A bootmaker who once repaired shoes alongside a young Tony Lama at Fort Bliss built a family shop that's since made roughly 700 pairs for the Pirates of the Caribbean films, outfitted KISS and a sitting president, and come startlingly close to replicating Clint Eastwood's own boots.
The Sanchez family's bootmaking lineage in El Paso traces back to Yldefonso Sanchez, who emigrated from León, Guanajuato, Mexico, and began repairing boots and shoes at Fort Bliss in the 1920s and '30s — working alongside a young Tony Lama, years before either man's name meant what it does today. Yldefonso opened his own shop, Champion Boots, in 1934. The second generation expanded the business through the 1950s, adding Western wear and multiple retail locations, and by the 1970s Champion was manufacturing tens of thousands of pairs for other large boot labels near Interstate 10 during the height of the cowboy boot boom.
In 1986, third-generation owners Joe and Priscilla Sanchez rebranded the operation as Caboots, formally Champion Attitude Boots, building it from a small shop on East Nevada Street into an internationally recognized custom house. Today, fourth-generation owners Joey Sanchez and his wife, Priscilla Viescas Sanchez, run the business their great-grandfather started. Joey also plays in a band on the side, and visitors who've met him describe him as one of the most genuinely amicable people and helpful resources you'll find among El Paso's bootmakers.
Everything at Caboots is made to measure, treated, in the shop's own words, as a work of art rather than mass-produced footwear — and somehow, despite a client list that's gone global, the shop has held onto what it describes as small-business, one-on-one customer relationships. Two of its master hand-stitchers are known in-house as "agujas de oro," golden needles, artisans typically in their seventies whose skill represents decades of practice the shop has spoken candidly about struggling to pass to a new generation.
The 1980s brought Caboots an unlikely kind of fame through MTV: the shop built boots for Poison, Mötley Crüe, Scorpions, Queensrÿche, and KISS, including a limited hand-stitched-signature edition made for KISS's own fan club, with members like Ace Frehley and Rikki Rockett among the names attached. On the film side, Caboots has built approximately 700 pairs for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, including boots for Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, alongside work connected to Top Gun, Cirque du Soleil, and Neiman Marcus holiday window displays. Former President Bill Clinton is also named among its customers. The shop's own "Shotgun" boot draws close inspiration from Clint Eastwood's iconic silhouette in the Man with No Name films — not an exact replica off the shelf, but close enough that the shop can build one to Eastwood's own specifications on request.
Four generations after Yldefonso Sanchez first picked up a boot repair kit at Fort Bliss, his family is still building them one at a time — for rock stars, pirates, presidents, and anyone else with a boot only they can build.
See more at caboots.com