The Boot Ranch Rite of Passage

Handmade M.L. Leddy’s Boot Ranch boots are part of every membership.

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M.L. Leddy’s iconic cowboy boots are the final pairing at Boot Ranch.

When new Boot Ranch members join the community, they take a well-heeled step into Texas tradition. Every Boot Ranch membership comes with a pair of exclusive, handmade cowboy boots from renowned bootmaker M.L. Leddy’s of San Angelo and Fort Worth.

Each pair of the elegant, black alligator boots is made to measure and hand built for its wearer. Never mind that it’ll be up to a year before they’re delivered. These boots are worth the wait.

Hal Sutton—Boot Ranch founder, Professional Golf Association legend, and designer of the Boot Ranch golf course— created the boot rite of passage at the inception of the private club community.

“Boots are synonymous with Texas, and I wanted our members to have a pair of Leddy’s that identify them as members at Boot Ranch,” Sutton says. “I like to say Augusta National Golf Club does green sport coats, and we do black alligator boots.”

“They’re very unique,” he adds. “They’re a keepsake forever.”

M.L. Leddy’s traditional bootmaking methods and old-school customer service are the product of nearly 100 years of experience. The business is run by the third and fourth generations of the Leddy family. Leddy’s grandson Wilson Franklin and his wife, Martha, have been the owners since 1986, and their high standards and proven techniques date back to the company’s founding in 1922.

As recently as 150 years ago, boots for either foot were made exactly the same. Today, Leddy’s precise fit, careful design, and quality materials come together to create a boot that some say fits finer than a pair of socks.

“There are a hundred boot companies out here, and you can go get amazing-looking boots at a lot of places,” says Mark Dunlap, Leddy’s vice president and general manager. “But no one does exactly what we do, and that’s what makes us very, very special.”

Leddy’s was honored and happy to support Sutton in developing the Boot Ranch boot. “From the breaking of ground at Boot Ranch, we were out there,” Dunlap recalls. Measurements for the first member boots were taken in 2005.

Every Boot Ranch boot sports a high-quality alligator-hide foot. The kangaroo-hide top is embellished on the front with an alligator-edged, kidskinbacked Boot Ranch boot emblem. Alligator skin trims the boot’s collar and pull straps.

“Alligator is considered the most exotic of all leathers,” Dunlap explains. “And it’s the finest boot leather from an appearance standpoint.” As he shows a boot, you can see that the kangaroo-leather uppers are lightweight, soft, and durable. “It’s a great leather,” he comments. “The Boot Ranch boot is a beautiful, beautiful piece of art.”

Leddy’s is well known for the kind of versatility that lends itself to creating a classic boot or fulfilling a customer’s dreams. Shelves in both the San Angelo and Fort Worth stores hold specially made ledger accounts dating back to 1922. For each boot customer, the ledgers contain the boot’s specifications, along with traced length and shape of each foot, and measurements of instep, ball, arch, and heel to desired boot height. A customer’s ledger and page numbers create a unique code that’s marked in ink inside each boot. Leddy’s has started its third ledger just for Boot Ranch.

You might ask why there aren’t online spreadsheets and scanned drawings instead. But that would fly in the face of Leddy’s intentionally traditional systems, including zero computerization on the bootmaking floor.

“We’re just so old-school,” Dunlap says. “We don’t want to change and do things differently. We don’t want the customer to feel that we’ve gone ‘computer’ on them, in a sense. Our accounting

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Leddy’s grandson Wilson Franklin and his wife, Martha, in the Fort Worth store; Leddy’s branded saddle; Mark Dunlap, General Manager of M.L. Leddy’s; Iconic M.L. Leddy’s sign in the Fort Worth Stockyards; Showroom at M.L. Leddy’s in Fort Worth.

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systems are all on computers, but not our bootmaking. We’re still building the boot today the same way that Mr. Leddy started 98 years ago. We haven’t changed one thing. There may be some new basic equipment like sewing machines, but we’re not computer-stitched, we’re not computer-lasted—we’re still handmade to the fullest, made to measure.”

Leddy’s San Angelo team of twenty expert bootmakers, many with decades of experience, each pursue a specialty contribution to a boot’s creation, sewing intricate patterns in the tops, creating the crimped bug-and-wrinkle stitching on the vamp, building heels, or making sure a last accurately reflects the customer’s measurements. Together they produce eight to ten pairs of boots a day. Saddles are made by a team on the third floor of the Fort Worth location, at the Stockyards.

Leddy’s comes to Boot Ranch twice a year, during the spring and fall memberguest golf tournaments. Their roadshow version of the store comes complete with tall, comfortable chairs to sit in while being measured, as well as

sample materials and boots, and a range of goods in case someone wants to order an additional pair or buy a belt or buckle.

Some members choose instead to be measured at a Leddy’s store, during an annual show in Midland, or at Leddy’s traveling store (under a small version of their signature neon sign) at the Houston Rodeo and the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. As a regular at the Houston Rodeo, Leddy’s will be celebrating its seventieth visit in 2021.

The connection with longstanding rodeo events reflects M.L. Leddy’s longevity and commitment to decades-old traditions, business practices, and civility. That code of honor plays out when asked about famous customers, whose measurements are maintained in a private ledger. “Out of respect to our customers, we don’t give out names,” Dunlap says. “They come here to be treated in a nice and special way, and we don’t feel it’s appropriate to give out names like that.”

But despite the company’s best efforts, the names of a few well-known Leddy’s customers have made their way

into the public sphere. They include both Presidents Bush, Trisha Yearwood, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Paul Newman, Nolan Ryan, former secretary of defense Robert Gates, musician Zac Brown, Terry Bradshaw, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, and of course, Hal Sutton.

Leddy’s also has plenty of working rancher and cowboy customers, along with oil company executives, doctors, rodeo champions, sheiks, art dealers, opera singers, and more—people from any walk of life able to invest anywhere from $1,250 to $18,000 in a pair of boots.

And Leddy’s looks forward to creating more Boot Ranch boots as membership grows, in part because of the connection the company has with the community. “Hal put together a great golf course and vision,” Dunlap says. “We love Boot Ranch, and we’re very honored and proud to be a part of it.”

— STORY BY ANNE HEINEN