A Boot Collector Feature
A mid-century Western boot label from Wichita Falls, Texas, that survives almost entirely on its pull straps, with cloth labels in the style bootmakers used from the 1940s into the 1960s.
What we know about Whit Bern comes from the boots themselves. Surviving pairs carry the name, along with “Wichita Falls, Tx,” on cloth labels sewn to the pull straps, a labeling style that was common on Western boots from roughly the 1940s through the 1960s, before many makers moved to printed or stamped interior marks. That places the label in the postwar heyday of the cowboy boot, when small shops, regional stores, and contract factories all put their own names on boots.
Wichita Falls fits that picture well. In those decades it was a busy North Texas hub for ranching and oil country along the Red River, the kind of town that could support its own boot shops and western stores. Whether Whit Bern built boots there or sold boots made elsewhere under its own label is still an open question.
Being one of the many mid-century names that collectors find on a pair and can’t find anywhere else. If you have a Whit Bern pair, construction details, any stamped numbers inside the shaft, and where the boots turned up are the best clues to who made them and where they were sold.
A Wichita Falls name on a pull strap, still waiting for its story.
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.