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The History and Appeal of Cowboy Boots.

The beauty of cowboy boots is that they are genderless. They can be worn by anyone, with anything, for any occasion.

This love affair with the 'soul' of the American cowboy, forever ingrained in our hearts, continues into the twenty-first century. 

After years of research, it has become clear that there was no "first" pair of cowboy boots—nowhere to begin the story of how the cowboy boot developed.

As far back as we know, horsemen throughout the ages, all over the world, preferred higher-heeled boots. This represented a sign of nobility or a profession on horseback, above the ground, hence the old adage well heeled.

Cowboys wore all kinds of boots, one example being the Wellington, a boot of British origin dating from 1810 and popularized by Arthur Wellsley, the first duke of Wellington, following his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. The Wellington boot is usually described as a plain boot commonly in black leather or sometimes brown. Typically these boots had side seams, one-inch stacked straight heels, square or slightly rounded toes, and leather pull-on straps. There was usually no decorative stitching.

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We know that by 1870 in Coffeyville, Kansas, they had combined the Wellington and military-style boots in what is known today as the Coffeyville-style boot. The Coffeyville boot is usually described as not having a specific right or left foot; as being constructed from unlined, waxed, flesh-side out leather, usually in black; having leather pull straps, a low Cuban heel, slightly rounded square toes, a fully pegged sole; and the front of the boot, or the "graft," being considerably higher than the back. Not always but usually the graft was a different color of leather—brown or a deep red. Accounts from the time describe Coffeyville boots made for Texas cowboys with a cutout five-point lone star inlaid in the center of the graft.

Throughout the 1860s and '70s, these various military-style boots continued to be copied in hundreds of variations, modified and sometimes improved upon by the gone-to-Texas southerners, who also brought with them the refined European cavalier-style ancestry of boot making, with its higher heel and finer leathers. During these times, heel shapes and boot heights varied greatly. Toes were usually of round or square duck-bill shapes that might be as wide as three inches. Stitching on the boot tops for support or decoration was actually fairly rare, and wrinkles, toe bugs, or flowers stitched on the toe tops were unheard of.

By the 1880s, a more characteristic boot was being developed with a four-piece construction and stovepipe top (which means the front and back of the boot were the same height). Some simple decorative stitch patterns were beginning to emerge, and the high heel was becoming much more popular.

At the turn of this century, the cowboy boot will be more than 150 years old. Has it changed much? Yes and no. Recently, there has been a wave of interest in period boots of the late-nineteenth century. Some makers are even fully pegging their soles (no stitching). Requests for high tops, higher heels, angled Cuban heels, no stitching up top, or a simple single row or two and a wide variety of squared-off early toe styles has become something of a trend, and it's not the old-timers making these requests, it's the young cowboys. As in the late 1980s and early nineties, anything still goes.