A Boot Collector Feature

J&M Custom Boots

A father-and-son shop whose path runs through nearly every major name in El Paso bootmaking before landing on its own name in 1994.

The Story

Juan Cruz began bootmaking in 1950 at age 15, in Juárez, Mexico, after his uncle Vicente Martinez taught him the trade; within a year he'd become a master bootmaker, and by 1955 he'd opened his own shop with his brother and uncle. From there, Cruz's career reads like a tour of El Paso's bootmaking history: custom mail-order work for Franklin Boots and Bronco Boots, lasting and bottom work for Ben Miller Boots, a stint at Tony Lama in the 1960s — described as earning him the reputation of working for the "champagne of bootmakers" — then T.O. Stanley Boots starting in 1979, where he met master bootmaker Benny Gray, and later Ammons Boots in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1994, after his mother's death, Juan and his son Marcos founded J&M Custom Boots on their own. Their first major client was Tom Taylor in Santa Fe, supplying boots until 2009. Juan retired in 2019 due to dementia; Marcos now runs the shop with craftsman Ismael Belman from Sunland Park, New Mexico, just across the border from Juárez where it all started.

What They're Known For

A direct, living link to several of El Paso's most storied bootmaking names, all passing through one man's career before settling into a small family shop — using vintage equipment and hand tools, by design, rather than modern production methods.