Tony Lama Boots is a western boot brand and a division of
Justin Brands, a
Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...
corporation.
History
Tony Lama was born to
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
immigrant parents in 1887. He first learned the leather and boot trade as an 11-year-old shoemaker's apprentice in
Syracuse, New York. In the early 20th century, Lama joined the U.S. Cavalry as a
cobbler
Cobbler(s) may refer to:
*A person who Shoemaking, repairs, and sometimes makes, shoes
Places
* The Cobbler, a mountain located near the head of Loch Long in Scotland
* Mount Cobbler, Australia
Art, entertainment and media
* The Cobbler (1923 ...
for the soldiers stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. After completing his service in 1911, he stayed in the border town of
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...
. While there, Lama met and married Esther Hernandez, a pianist and music teacher. Soon after, he opened a small shoe and boot repair shop.
Repairs were initially the biggest part of his business, but the boots he made soon became popular. In the first year, together with his one employee at the time, Lama sold 20 pairs of handcrafted boots.
By the 1930s,
Western wear
Western wear is a category of men's and women's clothing which derives its unique style from the clothes worn in the 19th century Wild West. It ranges from accurate historical reproductions of American frontier clothing, to the stylized garment ...
stores began asking for Tony Lama's boots. In response, he developed methods to produce greater quantities. Over the next two decades, Lama's six children became actively involved in the business. In 1946, his son, Joseph “Bert” Lama, presented a custom pair of
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
and
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
inlaid boots to U.S. President
Harry S. Truman.
In the 1950s, the company began marketing its boots nationally.
In 1961, nearly 50 years after the first store opened, the company moved into larger quarters and began making 750 pairs of boots a day. By the late 1960s, the company moved to a new factory on El Paso's east side. In 1990, Tony Lama Boots was sold to Justin Industries.
References
External links
Tony Lama website
Shoe companies of the United States
Companies based in El Paso, Texas
1911 establishments in Texas
Berkshire Hathaway
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