A Boot Collector Feature
A Phoenix kid who learned bootmaking young, apprenticed under the man who trained two legends of the craft, and eventually bought the shop outright.
David Espinoza grew up in Phoenix and learned bootmaking as a young boy, earning money in college by crafting purses, belts, and sandals for friends. In the 1970s he apprenticed under Jesse Bogle, a bootmaker credited with teaching the trade to two genuine legends of Western leatherwork, Paul Bond and Nudie Cohn. In 1990, Espinoza purchased the business outright from Bogle, taking over the shop — simply named BOOTMAKER — at 4409 N 16th Street in central Phoenix, where it still operates today.
Now in his seventies, Espinoza runs the shop with three artisan bootmakers, each trained in Mexico, handling much of the hands-on production. A typical custom pair takes about six weeks from order to finished boot.
Custom boots across a wide material range — ostrich, alligator, and goatskin among them — priced from around $500 up to $6,000, plus distinctive design work like tie-dyed finishes and Arizona flag motifs that set the shop's output apart from more traditional Western houses. The shop typically fields one to five custom orders a week alongside standard retail inventory, and has counted musician Glen Campbell among its celebrity clientele over the years.
A Phoenix institution running on a direct line of training back to two of bootmaking's genuine legends.
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.