Breweries and Bootmakers

Carol Jenkner

 

            In October, 1876 the Larned Press noted that there was a large boot sign on the east side of Broadway at Collins Harness Shop. That suggests that Larned had a bootmaker, an important craftsman at a time when cowboys wanting boots were pouring into Kansas on the cattle drives. Although the boot sign doesn’t come with a name telling us who the bootmaker might have been, Kansas held some of the finest cowboy bootmakers of the time, and is in fact credited with actually creating the original cowboy boot. Texas, of course, also lays claim to this title! It is believed that the first cowboy boot was made by the Hyer Boot Company of Olathe, Kansas at the request of a cowboy looking for someone to create a very specific boot, one that would slip into a stirrup easily and that would have a heel that would keep the foot firmly in the stirrup.

            Acknowledged as one of the finest makers of cowboy boots, John Mueller’s name was best known in Dodge City although he also made boots in Ellsworth, Abilene and Great Bend. He is known to have had a large boot sign hanging outside his Dodge City shop. The boot was also John Mueller’s cattle brand when he left the boot-making business to go into the cattle trade, a mistake that cost him his livelihood and his fine home in Dodge City. His entire herd was wiped out in the famous blizzard of 1886.

            Along with cowboy boots comes brew! In Kansas’ early days there were many breweries, many German-owned (the Germans love their beer!), but when Kansas declared itself a dry state in 1881, the breweries were driven out of business. Kansas’ prohibition lasted from 1881 until 1948, the longest prohibition of any state. The first post prohibition brewery in Kansas was Free State Brewing Company opened in 1989, the first licensed brewery in Kansas since prohibition. Brew pubs were allowed in 1987.

            Many German communities made their own beer, but the only known alcoholic beverage known to be manufactured in Larned was an alleged bootlegger who sold alcohol to Rose Chapman for an illegal saloon where the lumber yard now stands – allegedly.

            Put on your boots, we’ll provide the brew; come out to the Santa Fe Trail Center on July 23 for Boots and Brew.