A Boot Collector Feature
A modern Texas-made boot line named for the Kansas town where the cowboy boot itself was invented — and the second current brand in this series to trace its story back to the same 1875 shop.
Charles H. Hyer founded his bootmaking business in Olathe, Kansas in 1875 — the same shop credited with designing the pointed-toe, higher-heeled boot that became the template for the cowboy boot a year later. The company was later renamed C.H. Hyer and Sons as family members joined the business, and it's that original Olathe, Kansas name and location that the modern Olathe Boot Company brand invokes.
The current Olathe Boot Company was purchased in 2001 by Western Leather Goods, the same group behind Rios of Mercedes and the Anderson Bean brand. Production today happens alongside those sister brands in Mercedes, Texas, making Olathe one of two boot lines under that ownership that each claim roots running back more than a century.
Trading on a genuinely significant piece of bootmaking history — the Kansas shop where the cowboy boot's defining features were first worked out — while being manufactured today as a modern, Texas-made line under the same ownership as Rios of Mercedes. For collectors, the useful thing to know is simply that "Olathe" and "Hyer" are two different brands today, each invoking the same nineteenth-century name.
A modern boot line built on a 150-year-old Kansas name — one of two active brands today that trace back to the same original shop.