M.L. LEDDY: THE SAME, ONLY BETTER
For nearly one hundred years, Leddy’s has been a family affair, and like everything else Leddy, it shows no signs of changing – the fourth generation of Leddys are working the business today. During the drought of 1918, M.L. Leddy left his parents’ cotton farm to work for a saddle and bootmaking business in the little West Texas town of Brady. He bought the business in 1922, then moved it 50 miles west to San Angelo in 1936. He opened his flagship store in the booming Fort Worth Stockyards in 1941.
To the Leddys, “family” seems to be defined by more than just blood. Their workers are family as well, their loyalty as outstanding as their craftsmanship. When bootmaker Arch Baird retired from Leddys at the age of 91 in 2004, he had worked in the San Angelo shop for 63 years. “I stepped off an oil truck and started working for Leddy’s at one o’clock on January 23, 1941,” Baird told the local press. Arch had first met M. L. as a boy, when Leddy repaired the leather and padding on the leg brace he wore due to osteomyelitis. When Baird became a bootmaker himself, he specialized in fitting people with foot or leg abnormalities and designed all the basic lasts that are still famous for their arch support. Even after his retirement, he would often stop in to mentor younger bootmakers or solve some equipment problems. “He’d ride his electric wheelchair over from the retirement home,” recalls Beverly Franklin Allen.
As Leddy’s says, they like to keep things the same, only better. When somebody in San Angelo asks “What’s new?”, the proud answer is: not much.
The 85 step process developed by M.L. is still followed religiously in the crafting of a handmade pair of boots. The ledgers, tools and machinery, and many of the stitch patterns haven’t changed since the 1920s. The Fort Worth boot-fitting room contains rows of handwritten ledgers that hold customers’ foot dimensions and outlines going back to the 1940s, including one for just celebrities.
Design features haven’t changed either. “M. L. developed Leddy’s unique shank in the early 1920s,” says Mark Dunlap, vice president and general manager of the company. “We take a 40 penny nail, clip the head off and flatten it. It makes a much stronger shank. Far as we know, we’re the only company that does this.”
The “Henry Clark toe” is named for a customer who started the popular “round, sloping-off toe” in West Texas.
Though the “Alvin Barnett heel,” described as “a high, underslung heel for bronc riding,” is somewhat less popular with today’s Leddy’s customers, some who work on horseback still want a taller heel.
A sign used to hang in the M.L. Leddy’s store that said, “Tough as a bronc, neat as a pin, easy as a rocking chair.” No wonder. It takes about an hour and a half to correctly size someone for a custom pair of boots and 10 months to a year to complete them. Custom Leddy’s start at $1,000 and run up to around $13,000. Ferraris ain’t cheap, but they sure are fun.
The Ferrari Of Boots
M.L. Leddy gear is known as the Ferrari of boots – and it seems no-one is arguing. Many of Leddy’s customers are second and third generation, and tickled pink to add more pages to Leddy’s ledgers of each of the 5000,000 plus customers who have come to Leddy’s for the best boots in Texas.
Best boots in Texas? Yes sir – at least according to the thousands of politicians, ranchers, farmers, oilmen, barrel racers, cutting-horse champions, lawyers, surgeons, car dealers and football coaches who are die-hard Leddy fans.
Good company to be keeping.