When Erin Homann and her husband, Jason, walked into Little’s Boot Company on a recent morning to claim their prize of a custom pair of boots, she got emotional.
It had been a surprise to win not just a brand-new truck through last year’s raffle at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo but also a gift certificate worth $1,700 toward the western-style boots.
At the Southside boot shop, it was the memory that Homann’s father shared of getting his own pair of boots after a tragic 1972 car accident that overwhelmed her.
“He says Mr. Little got him walking and saved his life,” she said.
Little’s Boots has donated a pair of custom boots to the rodeo raffle for a “really long time,” said Sharon Little, owner of the business with her brother Duane Little.
Little’s Boots has been around even longer, designing and making custom leather footwear for generations of customers since 1915.
Little’s Boots got its start when Lucien Little gave up working as a traveling shoe salesman and opened a shoe repair shop in downtown San Antonio. He got into bootmaking and then in the 1950s moved his home and workshop to where it stands today at 110 Division Ave.
His son Ben joined him in the business, and later Ben’s sons, John Little and Dave Little, also became bootmakers.
Today, Lucien Little’s great-grandchildren, Sharon and Duane, run the business with bootmaker Royal Brown, who is their brother David Little’s son-in-law.
Duane Little wears ostrich boots with his initials on the inside ankle, common among the men’s styles, and Brown wears gray elephant skin. Sharon Little chose classic black crocodile.
She said she appreciates the family legacy of the business and helping customers create a personalized boot.
10-step process
At the store, converted from a home where her grandfather once lived, classic boots of every color, leather and style line the showroom shelves along the walls and on benches.
In contrast, a small back room holds boxes of simple brown boots, a pair in every width and length to aid customers in choosing their size.
Once a customer’s measurements are taken, the bootmakers select a white resin last — a form in the shape of a foot — closest to the size needed. Then they shape leather pieces to the last to create a perfect match to the customer’s foot.
The boots come together in a 10-step process at the four-room workshop next door to the showroom where most of the work is done by hand.
On a recent morning, Juan Dominguez stood at a workbench carefully cutting soft leather pieces into delicate pink flowers. He then glued the flowers onto two pieces of flat brown calfskin in preparation for stitching them onto the shaft of a pair of women’s boots.
Bootmakers Rafa Moreno, Jose Pena and Victor Velasquez, all with more than 15 years in the trade, worked on other orders, stitching and shaping the leather around the lasts until they form western-style boots. Another bootmaker, Ruben Diaz, retired last year after working at Little’s for over 50 years.
In one corner are two shelves stacked with dusty ledgers, one for every year going back to 1963. The pages are filled with customers’ measurements, order details and the cost — $60 for one pair that year. These days, a custom pair of Little’s boots starts at $1,800.
Inside every boot made by Little’s is a label with the owner’s name and the year they were made. The stacked-leather heels, made by a supplier in Massachusetts, are attached to the boot in the final step. The wait time for a pair of boots is about eight to nine months, Brown said.
Stories behind the boots
Every pair in the workshop benches or on display in the showroom has a story, the artwork revealing something of the owner, the artist and the craftsman.
Standing out amid all the stamped and stitched leather, western motifs, florals, flourishes and logos is a pair covered in a sheet of red sequins, boots presented to businessman Red McCombs during a roast over 40 years ago. “They wanted something that would sparkle,” Sharon Little said.
Three pairs on display were designed for an Absolut Vodka advertising campaign.
Others are for partners in a Houston law firm, who having won a large settlement against an oil company, held a boot-fitting party in the showroom, each selecting their own custom boots emblazoned with the firm’s logo and the defendant’s.
A top-to-bottom crocodile boot with bold stitching was a special order that came to $13,000 — the most expensive pair Little’s has ever made.
Boot shoppers can select from a range of leathers and colors, toe styles and stitching, and inlay artwork. Those selections determine the price, with crocodile being the most costly, starting at around $4,600 a pair.
“It’s fun to see people’s ideas come to life on something they can wear and really pass down,” Brown said. “It’s a piece of history. A lot of a lot of people pass this on to their kids and grandkids.”
Little’s also has standard-size boots that can be bought off the shelf, but those make up only about 10% of their sales, Sharon said. The company also repairs the boots it makes. A sign by the front door states: “No shoe and boot repair. Only Little Boots!!!”
Boots for milestones
As the generational bootmaker to Fiesta royalty and rodeo cowboys, to brides and grooms, ranchers and business owners, Little’s also has made boots for celebrities like Huey Lewis and the News and Roots author Alex Haley.
Visitors to San Antonio also come into the showroom, some to buy and others just to look around, Sharon Little said. She has never considered moving the shop back downtown or to the Pearl, even though they’ve been asked.
“This is where we make them so we don’t want to be somewhere else,” she said. “The tourists that want us are going to come — thank God for Uber.”
In addition to weddings, milestone birthdays are also a common occasion to order custom boots. Orders come from across the U.S. and abroad, and some are repeat buyers, she said.
For her first pair of custom boots, Erin Homann chose kangaroo hide, black for the instep and a bone color for the shaft.
“I’m still trying to figure out the artwork,” Homann said, though she plans to include steers to represent the animals her children raised and sold during the rodeo. “And there’s definitely cactus.”
The pair of Little’s will be the priciest in the collection of boots she owns, Homann said, and also perhaps the most memorable.
