A Boot Collector Feature
A boot company that started with Fort Riley’s cavalry officers in 1875 and went on to shoe presidents, generals, movie stars, and astronauts, all from a factory in Omaha.
Dehner traces its start to 1875 in Junction City, Kansas, just outside Fort Riley, where the German cobbler John Teitzel was making boots. Carlton C. Dehner spotted the boots in Teitzel’s back room and asked, “Why don’t we put in a factory and make these more available?” Dehner ran the business and Teitzel made the boots, starting with the cavalry officers at Fort Riley. In the mid-1910s the factory moved to Wichita, where Schuyler Jones joined and the firm became Teitzel, Jones & Dehner, better known as Teitzel-Jones.
After Teitzel died in 1929, Dehner sold his share to Jones and moved to Omaha with seven factory employees and his son-in-law, Harold Ketzler. The first boots shipped from Omaha in November 1930, from a building on Farnam Street. After Dehner’s death in the 1940s, the Ketzler family ran the company for three generations, from Harold to Donovan “Van” Ketzler to Jeff Ketzler. Around 2024, with the factory close to shutting down, Josh and Rebecca Johnson took it over and set out to keep it going.
Handmade boots built on old tools and antique machines: riding and equestrian boots well known among horse-sport riders, boots for law enforcement and the military, and custom pairs made on lasts fitted to the wearer. Each pair carries a company stamp and a five-digit serial number inside. The customer list is remarkable. It has included Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan, Gen. George Patton, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, James Dean and Brad Pitt (for film roles), and Christian Bale, and Dehner made boots for astronauts from the early NASA years into the space shuttle era, including a pair associated with John Glenn’s first American orbit of the Earth.
A century and a half of handmade boots, still coming out of Omaha.
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.