The Boot Factory

Near the end of the "Tour to Old Guerrero", we stopped in the Mexican town of Miguel Aleman to tour "The Boot Factory" of Don Cuco.


















Don Cuco began making boots about 60 years ago and, although he died a few years ago, the factory continues in operation under the management of his wife.


Our Tour Guide, Juan, began the tour by showing us the many different leathers used here to make boots; including snake, frog, python, stingray, shark, alligator, deer, and many more.

The signs on both sides of the front door, pictured above, lists all of the different leathers in Spanish.









Then we saw the area with all of the cutting dies hanging on the wall. This is where they cut out the leather for the top of the boots.














Then we saw the lower and upper parts of the boots being joined together by machine . . .















followed by gluing and nailing on the soles by hand . . .














and on to the the finishing color, polishing, and final inspection . . .













and finally to the display area where we had the opportunity of buying a pair of boots . . . and several in our tour group did.

















The Don Cuco boot factory makes an average of 250 pairs of boots per day, most of which are sold in stores in the Texas border towns of Matamoros, Progresso, and Reynosa . . . probably lots of them are bought by Winter Texans.

And that concluded our tour of "The Boot Factory", so now I know how boots are made!