A Boot Collector Feature
A two-generation Panhandle shop in Clarendon, Texas, where boots are built by hand on wooden lasts carved to each regular customer’s feet.
The shop’s lineage runs back to Pete Gordon, a Clarendon leatherworker who taught the trade to James Owens Sr. After serving in the Korean War, Owens came home to Clarendon in 1959 and went to work alongside Gordon, then bought the business and its machinery from Gordon’s widow in 1970. He ran it until his death in 1999.
His son Jim learned the work at his father’s bench and carried the shop on from a storefront on South Kearney Street in Clarendon, a small Panhandle town roughly 60 miles southeast of Amarillo. In a 2006 Austin Chronicle profile, he described bootmaking as a craft you learn by feel rather than from a book.
Custom-fitted handmade boots in work, dress, and everyday styles, built on wooden lasts made for regular customers. At the time of the Austin Chronicle piece, Owens handled nearly every step himself except the upper stitching, turned out around 40 to 50 pairs a year, and priced a custom pair at about $650. He steered away from showy toes and extreme heels, sticking with practical, well-fitting boots for the ranch country around him.
Two generations of Panhandle bootmaking, one pair at a time.
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.