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10/21/1962
Today an El Pasoan traveling anywhere from France to Hong King is just as likely to see a pair of El Paso made Tony Lama boots as he would had he traveled from his home to the downtown area.
This is a part of a success story that began nearly 50 yeas ago when, in 1913, Tony Lama Sr. began producing handcrafted cowboy boots in El Paso. From a production of approximately 20 pairs of handmade boots during that first year, the company has grown to where it now turns out over 350 pairs of handcrafted boots a day. This year Tony Lama boots are sold by more than 1500 retail stores throughout the world.
Hitch at ft. Bliss
In 1913 western boots were rough, rugged pieces of foot-gear – practical and utilitarian, designed to protect cowboys and western outdoorsmen from the rattlesnakes and rough range and desert flora. The boots were made of plain calf and kidskin and were a somber black or a sober brown.
El Paso in 1913 was a border town of 42,000, and was a thousand miles from anywhere. Tony Lama Sr. was a 27-year-old shoemaker from Syracuse, the son of Italian immigrant parents. Lama came to El Paso with the 6th Infantry and after his hitch at Old Ft. Bliss decided that the southwest was the place to make his permanent home.
Servicemen Spread News
He opened up shop at 109 East Overland Street combining his skills as a shoemaker and bootmaker. From the small start in 1913, the company grew at a steady pace, and in 1920 when El Paso’s population had gown to 77,000, and Lama had become the city’s leading bootmaker.
It was about the same time that a great change came to bootmaking and to the entire western wear industry. Thousands of Texans who had served in World War I, along with other servicemen from the western range had taken their boots and their western clothes with them to training camps all over the United States, and western boots had been worn by hundreds of A.E.F. marines and soldiers serving in Europe. This event, together with the exposure to western customs and dress experienced by thousands of doughboys from eastern and mid-western states, led to a tremendous upsurge in the demand for and manufacture of western boots and clothing.
Western movies added to this growth in the late twenties and early thirties when cowboy stars became the household heroes across the country and throughout the world. In fact, it was as a direct result of western epics that cowboy clubs sprung up in such unlikely laces as Paris and India.
Fans Tramp the World
World war II played an even greater part in the growth of western boot sales to a national industry. For then there were G.I.’s tramping almost every part of the globe, and quite a few did their tramping in a pair of western boots, with many Lama boot fans among them.
All this time the Lama Company was keeping pace with El Paso’s own growth and the company held to its place as one of the city’s leading industries. In May of 1959, the Lama Company moved from its first location at 109 East Overland to 219 S. Oregon where today over 150 people are employed in making quality Lama boots.
An unusual side of this story is the fact the Lama has never undertaken the mass production of its boots. The company has won its position as one of the world’s leading bootmakers by sticking to traditional handcrafting that assures top-quality products. Every Lama boot is hand-lasted, and every boot when finished is the product of at least 25 separate hand-crafted operations. In fact, so strict is this quality-production, that with a few exceptions in popular stocks styles, every boot is fitted to the individual customers’ foot measurements.
50,000 Individual Measures
To help maintain this type of quality for its customers, the Tony Lama Company keeps a permanent file of more than 50,000 individual measurements. Once a person orders a pair of Lama custom boots, his or her measurement chart is added to this file. For those customers who have unusual foot measurements, the company creates individually carved lasts to assure each customer of a perfect fit with every pair of boots.
Along with the strict adherence to traditional hand-crafting, Lama has taken advantage of those production methods which can be utilized without effecting quality. Thus the Lama company uses modern industrial sewing machines for stitching on popular stock models, and has taken to modern systems of storage, inventory tabulation and packaging.
Changes have not only came about in production and sales distribution, but in boot designs as well. Now-a-days kidskin, calfskin, sealskin, sharkskin, buckskin, lizard and pigskin leathers from the United States, water buffalo leathers, Brazilian alligator, ostrich from Argentina and kangaroo leathers from Australia go into Lama boots. And where once brown and black were the only colors, today a customer can name just about any known finish or dye – natural, pearlized, suede, white, brown, blue, red, green or even gold, and Lama will make up the boots. A Lama customer has a choice of Lama designs, or with custom boots can order any design he imagines will look great on the range or at the Saturday dance and he’ll get it.
One of World’s Largest
This kind of service, and Lama traditional handcrafted quality have been the factors in the growth of this El Paso Industry and have taken the name of El Paso literally everywhere. Of course the hard work, thought and ability of Tony Lama Sr. and of his three sons, Joseph (Bert), Louis, Tony Jr. and son-in-law Tony Caruso have been the major factor in the company’s continued success.
As one of the world’s largest manufacturers of custom boots, the Tony Lama company ships to customers in England, Nigeria, India, Lebanon, Sweden – to Panama, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela and to such far off places as Korea, Japan, Australia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, There are Lama boots being worn today, too, in countries behind the Iron Curtain.
Harry Truman Wears ‘Em
In the United States there are many notables who count themselves as Lama “boot-men.” Hollywood stars Joel McRea, Keeman Wynn, Rex Allen and Slim Pickens – rodeo standouts such as Benny Reynolds, Harry Chartiers, Guy Weeks, dean Oliver and Jack Buschbom wear and endorse Lama boots.
Perhaps the most distinguished Lama boot wearer is Harry S. Truman, former President of the United States. Mr. Truman ordered his first boots in 1946. Lama designed the El Presidente boot as an exclusive. The boots were made with Kangaroo vamps and kid tops inlaid with silver and gold and were presented to President Truman by Joseph “Bert” Lama.
Most Lama boots are sold through the company’s more than 1500 retail dealers from Maine to Hawaii, and most are sold to working cowboys, ranchers, horsemen, and to a cross section of citizens who’s work may take them to such diverse places as Madison Avenue or an ocean-going tanker.
So if you are one of those lucky American travelers who venture to far off places, don’t be surprised if the Camel-riding guide in Lebanon or the straight-shooting hero of a Japanese TV western is wearing a pair of familiar-looking boots. Chances are the boots were made in your home town by the Tony Lama Company.
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