Wheeler Boots (Texas Country Reporter)

A family shop that's been making custom boots in Houston for decades.

Dave Wheeler
4115 Willowbend Blvd
Houston, TX 77025
Email: [email protected]

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Video Script:: 

[Music] my dad always told people and I adopted it later we're not for people who need boots were for people who want boots if you want something made special one-off just for you we're the ones but you got to be patient they say few things in life are guaranteed and maybe that's true out in the wider world but inside a nondescript storefront in southwest Houston you can bet the farm on a pair of wheeler Buddhist you're guaranteed to wait for them guaranteed to be measured by owner Dave wheeler himself and guaranteed to look good is it true that people come in here and say I want this so with this toe I want this heel I want this field blah blah blah yeah but at some point you're gonna say well I'm gonna you know take all your ideas but make what I want no that's look I know I may suggest some changes strongly suggest very strongly like those two colors do not go together I don't want my name on an ugly boot I want it to be something that I like that I'm proud of since Dwight David Eisenhower was president a wheeler man has been stamping the family name into custom-made one-of-a-kind boots after nearly six decades their reputation it's grown into legend customers have waited up to three years for a pair it all began with boot maker Paul wheeler who made sure to pass down this discipline to his son [Music] at age 12 I was informed that I was coming down to the shop the boot shop was two years in at that point and my dad who had been in shoe repair his whole life grew up in that business did that when he was in World War two his dead his dad did it be honest you were you know twelve years old and you were in here love it or hate it hate it hate kicking and screaming coming in here because I wanted to be on the baseball field I didn't want to be in here because the old man was you know of that era they're hard on their kids you know they expect their kids to do certain things and do them right they were on you from the minute you woke up till the minute you laid your head down so you're right that's the way it was yeah [Music] strict but successful they've learned a lifetime of trade skills as a teenager and joined the shop crew full-time in his 20s father and son rode the ups and downs of the business together through oil booms and busts the urban cowboy craze and eventually pulls retirement he said my hands hurt my shoulders hurt so he said he just go on so I said all right but I was scared I mean he was always right there next to me and suddenly I'm the guy and I was 34 at the time and Dave has been the guy ever since earning the ultimate recognition among boot makers inclusion and Tyler beards book of the best so other beard comes out with these books and all of a sudden your boot making royalty yeah because if you're in one of his books or something and all the boot makers want to be in his books but they can't all be in there but now it's time once again for Dave to follow his father's example and a pair of wheeler boots is about to become even more rare but now it's you know it's time to kind of start wrapping it up you this is not the kind of business where you suddenly announce I'm retiring next month I know because we had to think about how we were going to do that because we didn't feel like we could just stop you know just put a sign on the door said that saying that's it you stopped taking new customers four years ago right yeah for the last four years dave has been working on the last four years of wheeler boots he almost has it all sewn up now and the antique machines will soon fall silent in this storage shop it's no small thing to take over your father's life's work and after 60 years Dave wheeler can rest easy knowing that he builds some mighty big boots one day he did he actually told me that he said you know I could never do all these things that you've done with the boot shop and I you know it's it's hard to get compliments out of those people from that era but I will remember that forever how'd that make you feel Oh God like it was all worth it it was all worth it just to hear that [Music] you