Think of all the towns that have chosen a totem:  Port Isabel’s porpoises, Louisville’s horses, Mission’s butterflies, Chicago’s cows.  Mercedes is the only I know of that choose to spotlight an industry:  the bootmaking business.  At one time, Mercedes had 12 bootmakers, according to Hernan Gonzalez, the executive director of the Mercedes EDC.

When Mercedes’ bootmaking legacy was chosen to represent the city, it was decided that each four-and-a half-foot tall, aluminum boot would sport a college logo.  The goal was to get people off the expressway and into town. AC/DC signs of Weslaco has fabricated each of the 30 sculptures.

“This is a boot with the right proportions, based on a Rios of Mercedes boot,” Gonzalez said.   “This has given Mercedes public art and given people a reason to come here.  UTRGV President Guy Bailey called the boots a tribute to higher education.”

Today three boot brands flourish in Mercedes. One specializes in made-to-order, handcrafted boots; another hand makes high-end boots from established patterns, and the third produces handmade  boots in competition with brands such as Justin and Tony Lama.

Custom made

Camargo’s opened in Mercedes in 1982, after Henry Camargo had worked for a Mexican boot company in design and hands-on production. He briefly partnered with a master bootmaker from Ciudad Victoria.  While in Mexico, Camargo made boot molds and dies for the day he would have his own business.

Today Camargo and his brother Santos sit on low cobbler’s seats, tapping wooden pegs into American-leather soles or holding small nails in their mouths as they stretch leather around a boot mold with pliers.  They secure the temporary nails with a single tap from the pliers. The smell of leather floats through the small workshop open to the October breeze.

“You have to know how to draw,” said Camargo, who has been drawing since childhood.  Customers bring him a design to modify or he creates one to suit their taste. He then measures customers’ feet in several places to insure a custom fit. “The good thing about our boots is, if your feet swell, the leather stretches because of the way the leather was cut. The inside of the boot molds to your foot.”

Once the cut, height, toe shape and design of the boot are chosen, the Camargo brothers begin building a boot, cutting the leather and then transferring the design in pencil to the chosen leather. Stitching or inlaying a design (maybe an orange longhorn) or tooling the leather is followed by the painstaking putting together of the multiple boot components in a process that takes three to four weeks. They work on several pairs of boots at the same time.

While Winter Texans often walk in and buy a handmade sample if it fits, the bulk of Camargo’s  boot buyers are from out of town. “Yesterday seven people from out of the Valley came in to have boots custom made.  They value the artistry and the service,” he said.  The shop uses only American leathers: ostrich, elk, frogskin, lizard, stingray, French calfskin, shark and alligator dyed the colors of the rainbow. When Camargo hand tools boots, he often makes a matching belt.

The bootmaker has other talents.  The machinery used for trimming and finishing soles and stitching designs is definitely vintage. “You have to know how to fix it.” And about once a month, Camargo is hired to showcase old-fashioned bootmaking at southwest festivals and corporate events.

Camargo doesn’t see himself retiring. He has one part-time apprentice and an 8-year-old grandson who loves being in the shop.

Rios of Mercedes traces its roots back 160 years. Trainor Evans and his family got into the boot business by doing fancy-stitching contract work at a Mexico boot factory for an American company.  In the early 1970s, the subcontracting went so well that they bought Rios of Mercedes.

“In the 1970s and 80s, when we started growing, hardly a year went by without us losing an employee who was starting his own business,” said Evans, who runs Rios of Mercedes and Anderson Bean with partner Pat Moody.

Handmade in America boots, constructed with durable premium hides by master artisans, command premium prices.  At the Rios plant, the muted rhythmic tapping of bootmakers at work is heard, but none of the mechanical whines you might expect from a production floor. That’s because the production of the high-end brand is hands-on.  For every size, half-size, width and toe style, there is a different last (mold) the bootmakers use to shape the leather. “Here all you can hear is quiet,” Evans said.  “Our labor cost in a boot is $80.”

The emphasis is on quality, even on parts that are not visible, “but they know it feels good on,” Evan explained.  “We don’t have quality inspectors. Everyone is responsible.” Any of the artisans can stop the line and send the proto-boot back to be torn apart and started again.  “It’s a matter of spending a great deal of time learning the art. It breeds a culture of realizing that this is not a one-man show. This is a nicely built product we put out and say it is as good as you can make it. There are no secrets here.”

The completed Rios boot features genuine top-of-the- line calfskin or other leather and natural soles. Rios also produces private label boots for top of the line retailers, if they take at least 2,000 pairs per year.

“The whole market (for American-made high-end boots) is small, and we’ve got most of that,” Evans said. The middle segment of the boot market is much larger. “We knew if we wanted to keep growing we had to get into that level of sales.” In the late 1980s, they launched Anderson Bean, maintaining quality standards in hand-lasting and hand-welting boots, but adapting some things so the labor costs on the middle market boots dropped to $40.  For example, when big sides of leather arrive, they are graded into number ones, which go to Rios; number twos which go to Anderson Bean.  The leathers all come from farm raised animals: snakes, ostriches, sting ray, alligator and much more.

Anderson Bean is a larger, noisier, faster paced factory although the bootmaking process is similar, turning out what Evans calls “a nice rodeo boot.” Here one room contains multi-stitch machines which finely stitch designs onto leather for both brands. It embellishes 300 pairs of boots daily, doing some things that couldn’t be done before. He pointed out that certain processes, like cording a top, are only possible by hand.

The companies don’t use titles, but Moody oversees sales and credit, Evans handles production and finance and his son-in-law Ryan Vaughan is in sales.

The first of Mercedes’ 30 logo boots were funded by the EDC as part of their marketing campaign, but the last seven have been privately funded.  For the newest, a TAMU-Corpus Christi boot, a Valley woman attending that school raised half of the needed $2,400 and the university matched that amount.

Clearly, both boots from Mercedes and boots in Mercedes have widespread and lasting appeal.

For more information, call Camargo at 565-6457 or see rioofmercedes.com. 

November 2016 cover story by Eileen Mattei.