It’s hard to pin down the exact birthplace of the cowboy boot, but for my money the Rio Grande Valley is the spot. By the 1790s, formal ranches were established in New Spain, north of the Rio Grande, in what is now South Texas. Cowboy culture flourished in this cattle country. Zapateros (shoemakers) working along the Rio Grande began making leather boots, plus saddles, lariats, hats, spurs, and chaps. These items were essential to the vaqueros, just as they would be to the American cowboys who drove great herds northward from South Texas in the years after the Civil War.
As part of teaching American cowboys how to be cowboys, vaqueros showed them what kind of boots were best for a life spent in the saddle while herding fierce Longhorns that had little in common with today’s docile beef cattle. Their preference: sleek, leather-
soled boots that could slide out of a stirrup easily, with tall shafts to protect the calves from brush scrapes and snakebites.
This history is heavy on my mind as I approach my first stop, Raymondville, where I will visit Armando’s Boot Co., the shop of Armando Duarte Rios and his son, Armando Jr. The Rios family has made boots for both vaqueros and cowboys for more than 150 years. Family history holds that at least as far back as 1853, a Rios was working as a leather tanner and maker of saddles and sandals for granjeros (farmers) in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. By the mid-1860s, another Rios was building boots for Mexican army troops loyal to Emperor Maximilian I.
The family relocated to the Rio Grande Valley in 1925, and in 1928 brothers Abraham and Zeferino Rios opened Rios Boot Company in Raymondville. A year later, disagreement between the two led Zeferino to break away and open his own shop in Mercedes, 40 miles south. Zeferino would sell to investors from West Texas in the late ’60s, establishing Rios of Mercedes, a corporate boot factory that to this day turns out thousands of pairs of boots a year.
Meanwhile, Abraham continued to operate Rios Boot Company in Raymondville, with a clientele that included Los Kineños, the vaqueros on King Ranch. In time, Abraham’s nephew, Armando Duarte Rios, began working for his uncle, learning family bootmaking traditions. Rios Boot Company would eventually fold, but in 1982 Armando opened Armando’s Boot Co., where I’m stopping.
At Falfurrias, I take State Highway 285 over to US 77, then head south again. This route takes me across the Norias Division of the King Ranch and into Raymondville, a town founded by a King Ranch division manager. The town is still steeped in vaquero and cowboy culture. Like most communities in the Valley, Raymondville is growing, yet it’s still a safe distance from the urban sprawl of the McAllen metro area 50 miles southwest.
Armando’s Boot Co. is easy to find along US 77—the big cowboy boot on the roof giving it away. Armando Jr., a 50-something with gray in his hair and whiskers, greets me. His dad, Armando, who is in his late 70s, still puts in full days at the shop, but Armando Jr. is heavily involved with the operation of the business, answering the phone, greeting customers, and keeping the books. If there’s time left, he works on boots himself. “That’s my real love,” Armando Jr. says. “I’d rather be back in the shop.”