A Boot Collector Feature

Ryder Gauteraux

A former bronc rider turned self-taught bootmaker, building custom boots and rodeo chaps in Central Oregon.

The Story

Ryder Gauteraux is a native Oregonian who rode bulls and then saddle broncs on the rodeo circuit. He got into leatherwork because he saw a shortage of custom leather goods, and he taught himself: by his own account he read a few books, watched a video, and started building. His first workshop was a 7-by-10-foot laundry room in his house.

Chaps came first. By 2007 he had been making chaps for about seven years and boots for about three. He spent four years in Redmond, where he co-owned a store called Western Ranch. He later sold that business but kept the boot and chap work. In March 2007 he opened Gauteraux Boot Company at 192 East Main Avenue in Sisters, Oregon.

His work was still being featured more than a decade later: Western Art Collector profiled him in its “Western Makers” series in December 2019.

What He's Known For

Fit was his selling point. “I can design a boot to fit, even if there are a lot of problems,” he told the local paper, and he built for customers who struggled to find boots, such as people with mismatched feet or toes that had healed crooked. His boots offered exotic leathers and decorative tops, including ostrich, anteater, tooled tops, and fully beaded tops. In 2007 his boots started at about $1,100. An anteater boot with a tooled top ran about $5,000, and a pair with fully beaded tops was priced at $8,500. He had a waiting list of roughly six months.

His chaps were well known around the Northwest rodeo scene, especially among rodeo queens. He had made chaps for the Sisters Rodeo queens for about five years by 2007.

Identifying His Boots

The pair we've examined has no label inside the shaft. The maker is identified by a stamped leather badge on the outside of the boot instead, so look on the outside, not just in the shaft lining. Most makers mark their boots with a pull label or an ink stamp inside, so an outside badge stands out.

The bronc rider fits a maker who rode saddle broncs himself, and the “Redmond OR” line is a useful dating clue. It points to his Redmond years, before the shop moved to Sisters in 2007. Pairs made after the move may carry a different badge. We don't yet know whether every Gauteraux pair carries one.