These Cowboy Boots Were Made for Gawking

Chris Conrad felt what he describes as his divine calling almost fifteen years ago. The fifth-generation Texan had been living and traveling abroad for several years while working in the oil and gas industry. Walking the streets of cities and towns in other nations, Conrad noticed small businesses dedicated to crafts with deep roots in their country’s history and culture. In Japan, he saw kaji (swordsmiths) forging katanas. In Italy, wine merchants held forth on the art and science of vinification. Conrad thought of his native Houston and the slow disappearance there of a traditional Texan craft: bootmaking. He got an idea. “Everywhere I traveled, people loved Texas,” he says. “Regardless of where I was, it inspired this vision of cowboy independence.” And that vision, of…

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