"Retired" Boot Maker Found
A Niche In Working Footwear

By David Bowser

AMARILLO — It was about 1885 when a boot maker named McLaughlin moved to the Texas Panhandle town of Channing to ply his trade. Most of his customers were cowboys from the famed XIT Ranch.

Harry Beck, sitting in his studio on the west side of Amarillo, traces the roots of his interest in boot making to that time and place. At least once a month, Beck travels from his shop in the Las Tiendas complex on Amarillo Boulevard north to Dalhart, land once part of the XIT, to take orders from working cowboys for handmade boots.

McLaughlin moved to Amarillo in 1895. Beck's father and uncle, twins Earl and Bearl Beck, started their boot making operation in Dalhart in 1916. The brothers bought out McLaughlin in 1921.

They went on to open a second location in Fort Worth, near the stockyards. Their Amarillo location was at 411 Polk Street, next to Amarillo National Bank.

Although Beck's uncle died in 1940 and his father died in 1942, Beck grew up working at the boot shop.

"It was really my first love," he says. "I spent every moment I could out of school."

He played football and sports for the Amarillo High School Sandies, but still found time to make boots while he was a teenager.

After graduating from high school in 1949, he decided the cowboy boot business was over. By 1951, he had gone to work in the ladys’ shoe business.

In 1970, he moved to California to represent a company that made shoes in Brazil.

"I opened a shoe factory in the late 1970s in California," he says.

He made unbranded shoes at his factory in downtown Los Angeles for department stores such as Hudson's, Joskey's and Macy's.

"At our peak, we were running 2000 pair a day," he says.

In 1985, he and his son Biff traveled to China to tour competing shoe factories in Asia.

"We went to see these fabulous machines our senators told us about in China," Beck says. "Of course, we discovered what they were doing."

The Chinese were using children to make the shoes. The average worker was about 13 years old, and the pay was very low. That was their competition, Beck says.

To compete in the world market, Beck opened a factory in 1986 across the border in Mexico.

"We thought we'd try and make it in Mexico, but even in Mexico, the labor is way above what Chinese labor is," he says.

He sold the factory in 1991, going into semi-retirement. He did some consulting for shoe manufacturers, but he still kept thinking about his youth and making cowboy boots.

He moved back to Amarillo in 1993.

"I was totally retired, and I thought it'd be fun to make a few pairs of boots, so that's why I have a studio out here," Beck says. "I go to Dalhart one day a month, and I take orders."

One of the things he discovered early on after his return to the Panhandle was the cowboy's need for a good pair of working boots.

"I saw the biggest need was not dress boots, but working cowboy boots," he says. "I put the pencil down to see what I could make for a working cowboy. The working cowboy needs price. He needs a long-wearing boot. He needs fit. And he needs them yesterday. We fulfill most of those."

Beck says he doesn't deliver them yesterday, but he does deliver a new pair of boots in about six to seven weeks.

"I sort of backed in on the work boot thing," he says. "When I first started, I'd take scraps of leather and make a half pair just to make sure they fit, but without putting all the work into it."

But he decided to go ahead and put a little more work in it and make a test boot. One of his customers asked why he didn't make a pair like the test boot for a work boot.

"More people are wanting work boots than dress boots," Beck says. "Even our dress boots we make heavy duty."

He says he's been surprised by the women who come in and like the looks of the work boots.

His decision to specialize in working boots turned out to be both good and bad. Business boomed, but his free time disappeared.

"Since we elected to make the working cowboy boot, our business has boomeranged," Beck shrugs. "Retirement is no more retirement."

Retirement or not, Beck has his hands full. He's had to hire others to help him, including a man who used to work for Sam Lucchese and comes up from El Paso once a month.

"Not many boot companies really want to make boots for true, working cowboys," Beck says. "They're hard on them."

All the component parts are extra heavy to withstand the hard use the cowboys give them.

Beck says he doesn't know who originally started the process, but boot makers after the Civil War used 40-penny nails in the shanks of their boots to make them stronger.

"From the photographs that we see, the cowboys were using ox-bow stirrups, just a small stirrup," Beck says. "At the end of the day's ride, the shanks, the arch in their feet, were just absolutely killing them. So someone back in that time came up with the idea of putting a spike, a 40-penny nail, in the shank.

"In order to hold that shank in the boot properly, the boot had to be pegged. That's the reason for the rows of wooden pegs in the arch or shank of the boot. If it doesn't have a pegged shank, it isn't an authentic cowboy boot."

The cowboy of today is going back to the ox-bow stirrup.

"If they don't have this 40-penny nail in the boot, at the end of the day they hurt," Beck says. "It's just like standing on a broom handle all day."

In addition, the welts are all hand-sewn. The heels are made in individual layers so if they get wet, some won't swell more than others. They will all swell the same.

"One of the advantages of a handmade boot is that the leather is stretched twice in the process of making it, so they do hold their shape for the life of the boot," Beck says.

He says they cut all of their own insoles and counters. He's also careful to make sure the counter is thick enough that it holds up even though the cowboy may be wearing spurs all day.

Part of the process he uses is making a cast of each customer's foot.

"That way we can see all the little problems," Beck says.

He pulls a set of casts off the shelf and points to a callous on the sole of one man's foot as an example.

"He's been wearing a boot that's squeezed his foot," Beck says. "He has to trim this with a knife. It's like putting a pin in it all the time. What we have to do is make a boot that fits his foot."

Beck, pointing to the heel, says the man wears a nine at the heel, but about a seven across the width of the foot.

"We have to make the last to accommodate this joint and the rest of the foot," Beck says.

If the boot is made properly, the callused mound showing on the cast will eventually go down.

"His foot is slowly going to move out," Beck says. "He'll get some more length out of it."

Beck says he’s found that the most important thing is making the cast.

"We're sure getting a better fit," he says.

In transferring the information from the cast to the last in a foot where the heel may be a larger or smaller size than the rest of the foot, Beck says they will start with a smaller last and build up the areas that need it.

"That will give this man a narrow heel, and he'll still have room for his toes," Beck says. "His toes will not be jammed in the boot."

While his working boots generally are made from oiled cowhide or water buffalo, Beck makes boots in a variety of leathers.

His kangaroo comes from Australia, but it's tanned in Italy.

"The best tanners are in Italy," he explains.

His calfskin comes from France, his kidskin from Italy. The ostrich is from South Africa.

"Our oiled cowhide, which is one of our prime materials for work boots, is American cattle tanned in Chicago," he says.

The water buffalo is tanned in Pakistan. The reason the leathers come from different places is because that's where the best tanners are, he says.

While he praises local feedyards and ranchers for taking care of the hides of the cattle they have, he says most of the cowhides from the Texas Panhandle go to make athletic footwear in Korea and China.

"The finest hides are from the U.S.," he says. "They pay premiums for American hides because there aren't any scars on them. If you get leather out of Argentina, it's scarred up. Because of our feedyards and they way they process cattle, our best cowhides are still from the USA."

But the finer quality leather comes from younger animals.

"That's why calfskin comes out of France, because we don't eat veal," he says.

And not all of his boots are working boots, he admits. He does make dress boots. At the moment, he's involved in making a pair of alligator boots for Jim Schwertner of Capitol Land and Cattle Company.

"The alligators themselves are raised in Mississippi," Beck says, "but the best tanners for quality alligator are in Switzerland."

Europeans are more willing to pay for high quality leather goods, Beck says.

"They can get a better price for leather than we can," he notes.

Although he says he doesn't plan to market in Europe, he has no problem getting French calfskin.

Part of that goes back to his years in the shoe business. He knows many of the suppliers, and consequently, even though he has a small operation, he's able to get the quality of materials he needs.

And part of it comes from just good business sense. When he called a supplier of calfskin in France, Beck wasn't sure he would be ordering enough volume to gain the Frenchman's interest. But the French tanner told him that if Beck would make him a pair of custom cowboy boots, he could have all the calfskin he wanted at a reasonable price.

"We get our calfskin just a few skins at a time out of France," Beck grins. "We get our leather in three or four days."

Beck calls the tanner and the leather is shipped Federal Express.

Most of Beck's customers have at least two or three pairs of working boots so they can rotate them around if they get wet. Many of his working cowboy customers are now on their fourth or fifth pair.

"Once they get into their third pair," he says, "they probably won't need to see me for several years."

But that doesn't mean that business is falling off. In fact, quite the contrary. Although his son died recently, Beck's daughter, Carolyn Furnish, who's at college finishing her doctorate in Shakespeare, plans to return home and continue the business.

"She'll be third generation," Beck says proudly.

At that point, he says, he may retire — again. Then he reconsiders.

"I'm retired, but I really enjoy the type of people we're dealing with," he says. "They're a different breed, but they still have morals. We're working with people who are ag-related. It's really fun. It makes me very proud to be an American."