A Boot Collector Feature
Coronet magazine once called him "the best bootmaker in the world." He built that reputation from a shoeshine stand in San Angelo, Texas.
Willie Lusk Jr. was born April 7, 1914, in San Angelo, Texas, and started earning money shining shoes at age twelve. By thirteen he was working at N.A. Brown's Boot Shop in San Angelo, where Czech immigrant bootmaker Frank Urban taught him the craft of handmade boot construction. When Brown relocated to Lubbock in 1934, Lusk followed, continuing to work at Brown's Boot and Saddle Shop. After Brown sold the shop in 1946, Dallas gambler Bennie Binion financed Lusk's own independent venture, and Lusk built his Lubbock shop into a nationally recognized name through word-of-mouth and personal promotion across the western United States, especially in Las Vegas.
Boots worn by Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan, Merle Haggard, and Gen. Omar Bradley, among other notable names — recognition significant enough that Coronet magazine called him "the best bootmaker in the world" in July 1951. His work appeared in a 1986 Texas Sesquicentennial traveling exhibit, Lubbock named a park after him in 1990, and his widow Mildred kept the shop running until 1991. A Texas Tech Museum exhibition on Lubbock bootmaking later credited his innovations as the foundation modern Lubbock makers like Brad Glenn still build on — and Lubbock's bootmaking reputation has carried forward in other shops too, including RC Custom Boots, which opened its own Lubbock storefront decades after Lusk's.
A Lubbock legend whose boots reached the White House and Hollywood.
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.