Vintage Cowgirl Boots

Great old cowgirl boots. Bench made. No makers mark. They remind me of boots made by C.H. Hyer, Kuykendall and Starnes.

.

Heart Stitched Cowgirl Boots

Maker Unknown. ca. 1900
.

Bootmakers and cobblers set-up shop in communities along the early cattle trails. Cattle drives in the 1850s could take as long as five or six months. Most started in San Antonio or Fredericksburg. The drives followed a southern route through El Paso to San Diego or Los Angeles and on north to San Francisco. Cattle were trailed to West Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas... beef for the frontier forts and Indian reservations.

By 1866, ranching and cattle trailing was a thriving, growing business. The Chisholm Trail. The Goodnight-Loving Trail. The Western or Dodge City Trail. Trails that would come to define the face of the American West as we know it today.

The bootmakers, known and unknown, who lived and worked along those trails and the boots they made would come to define the Art of the Boot as we know it today.

.

Cowgirl Boots: Collection J. Davis

Photography: J. Davis