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What's The Story Behind The Original Cowboy Boot?
Zach Lawless • 2024-03-05
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to the Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, what is the story behind the original cowboy boot? You will learn in this episode about the creation of the cowboy boot, the history of Hyer Boots, and how Hyer Boots operates today. Our guest is the CEO of Hyer Boots, and the great-great-grandson of CH. Hyer, who invented the original cowboy boot. I introduce to you, Zach Lawless. I am a child when I am rummaging through our garage, and I find a pair of cowboy boots. And at that time, I didn't really know what they were. In fact, I was afraid that there was probably a spider or something in the boots themselves. Therefore, I run inside, I was not accustomed to what these were. And I talked to my dad and I asked him what they are. And he kind of shares his story, a little bit about his childhood and how those were from when he grew up. And that's what he kind of wore around the farm that my grandfather owned. And so that was kind of my first introduction into cowboy boots. And so I'm kind of curious, Zach, about you and your story. Could you share how you discovered you're connected to CH. Hyer and the original cowboy boot? And what was it like uncovering that piece of history?
Zach Lawless:Yeah, for sure. I think it's funny because we probably have a very similar first encounter with, or maybe not first encounter with cowboy boots, but very similar origin story around cowboy boots. And I grew up really knowing nothing about my family's history in Hyer Boots or in the Western industry in general. And about five years ago, my grandfather passed away and we were moving my grandmother into a retirement home. And I was downstairs or down in the basement looking through all the boxes. And I uncovered two boxes that were labeled with Hyer, which was my grandmother's maiden name. And the first one I opened up had a picture at the very top of it of Calvin Coolidge dedicating Mount Rushmore, a pair of cowboy boots, along with an order form attached to it. And that order form had a note that said, but thank you so much for rushing these boots. Couldn't imagine doing this in anyone else's boots. At that point, I was able to put together that Hyer was my grandmother's maiden name, Hyer was the name of the boot company on the order form, and Calvin Coolidge was wearing these boots. So I thought that was about the coolest thing ever. There's a bunch of old boots in there, a bunch of old memorabilia. Just judging by the level of the marketing that was on the material, I knew it was something, especially at that day and age, that was fairly significant. So I went up and asked my grandmother about it. She acted as if she'd been waiting 50 years for a grandchild or a child or somebody to just ask her about it. We spent really the next day or two days just talking about the old stories of Hyer Boots and everything else along that nature. So that was the first real encounter, I guess, like understanding of Hyer Boots for me and from there, kind of the passion and the knowledge for everything really continue to grow.
Dylan Carnahan:That's again, kind of similar story, right? You're just kind of looking around and you find something, you find this thread and you follow through and you research it and you have the opportunity to speak to someone that's knowledgeable about it and that wants to share the information. So after you kind of stumble upon this, what kind of research do you do and what do you find out about that business?
Zach Lawless:Well, so we stayed up all night chatting about I think the one thing that I was able to take away from the conversation with my grandmother was that this was something that was really important to her. And so the other thing to note is just the time of this all happening. So it was right after my grandfather passed away. So, you know, anything that can kind of take her mind off of that and onto something that's interesting or exciting was, I thought, a major opportunity. And so I went home and I came up with the idea that this was right before Thanksgiving. And so I came up with the idea that I wanted to see if I could get the trademark back into the family before Christmas and I could give it to grandmother's Christmas gift. I thought it would be a really, really great Christmas gift. And when I went home, I actually researched, researched a little bit about it, tracked the trademark down to Berkshire Hathaway owned the trademark, which was a lot bigger of an entity than I ever imagined would own the trademark. And so I came up with this idea that I was going to call Berkshire Hathaway and tell them about my grandmother and how much it would mean to her. And they would just give the trademark right back. So I called up Berkshire Hathaway and told them this this beautiful story, I thought, and they told me to go kick rocks that they were that they weren't going to sell. I also think that they thought that I probably couldn't afford their their legal teams billable hours to even handle that transaction. So I ended up what I ended up doing is I ended up calling every Wednesday at 11 a.m. It took me 18 months, 18 months of calling every Wednesday at 11 a.m. until I until I was able to convince them to drop the trademark and give me the opportunity to relaunch Hyer Boots.
Dylan Carnahan:Wow, that is not getting done before Thanksgiving.
Zach Lawless:Oh, no, that was very naive, very naive, naive thought process. But I look back at it laughingly, like my fiance at the time, my wife now. We we joke about how this was everything we've done was supposed to be like a day long, like a week long process. And we're sitting here four years later.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. Well, that that I mean, clearly it worked. It will get to it will get to the present tense now. Let's let's move into kind of the history of Hyer Boots. Can you talk a little bit about your connection to CH. Hyer and, you know, his invention of the Cowboy Boot?
Zach Lawless:Yeah, for sure. So I think, as you mentioned, the thing that Hyer Boots or CH. Hyer is most famous for is the invention of the Cowboy Boot. So you type in Google who invented the Cowboy Boot, Hyer Boots will pop up. An angry looking German guy will pop up as well too. That angry looking German guy is CH. Hyer, who happens to be my great great grandfather. In CH. Hyer, the history of Hyer Boots coincides a lot with the history of Cowboy culture here in the United States. So back in the day, after the Civil War, the railroad extended into Kansas City and then dead ended in Kansas City for a few decades while people while Denver and Fort Worth started building from their locations into Kansas City. So people started building into Kansas City and that left the railroad dead ended in Kansas City for a long period of time. Well, people, the kind of interesting fact, I'll give you a little bit of history. Tell me if you want me to stop going so in depth with it. But back in the day, the price of head for the price of per head of cattle in Texas was $4 and the Northeast, it was $44. So there was a real incentive to be able to move your cattle into the Northeast and get a better, a better payday. So what ended up happening is when the railroad ended in Kansas City, all the cowboys from across the United States, Texas, Texas, Oklahoma are the famous ones, but you had them coming from Colorado, every which way in the United States would drive their cattle into Kansas City, so into the stockyards in Kansas City, so they could get a better payday for their for their for their stock. And and that was known as the long haul catalyst, or kind of like the golden day of cowboying back in the day. And with that, there was a large rise, especially in the Kansas City area, around Kansas City, of people who were supplying cowboys. So not only Hyer Boots popped up, but Lee Denham is from that era. Stetson Hatz is from that era. It's kind of this, like, lost piece of Kansas City culture of the cow town. You know, we don't talk about it very much, like, we don't talk about Kansas City, the cow town, but that's really kind of the roots of where this whole city started from. And so the story goes that a cowboy was just dropped off all his cattle, got paid, and came into Hyer Boots' store and said, I need the best pair of cowboy boots, or best pair of boots for the job. I don't care what the price is. And so my grandfather took that as a challenge to build the best pair of boots. And so what he did is he put a pointed toe, a raised heel, and a scalloped top on it, and a pair of boots, and used that combination of those three and labeled it a cowboy boot. So people always ask, how can you claim that you've been to the cowboy boot? Well, back in the day, those three things might not sound like crazy inventions, but this is only about 10 years after the invention of the right and left foot shoe. So prior to like about 1960s, out of England was the invention of the right and left foot shoe. Before that, you would actually get a shoe that was the same on the left and the right. You'd go stand in a bucket of water, get it sopping wet, and then wear it dry. And when you wore it dry, that would actually make it go to your foot. So 10 years later, he's putting a pointed toe on a boot, which you could never put a pointed toe on a boot before you had a right and left foot shoe. You raise the heel so it would hold in the stirrups better. And you put a scallop top. And the reason the scallop top is good is because cowboys are getting in and out of the saddle a whole bunch. So what it allowed you to do is walk without chafing the front of your leg, but also you get the protection of the higher scallop on the side. So those are the mentions he labeled on the cowboy boot and he started marketing as a cowboy boot. So that was back before the term cowboy was even a single word. The original marketing for Hyer Boots for the cowboy boot in 1876, it's two words, cow and boy, cowboy boots.
Dylan Carnahan:That is crazy. I appreciate the context too about just footwear at the time. Because like you're saying, it's really easy to look back and go, okay, those three things don't sound super innovative, but putting them all into a single product and knowing what else was going on, like you're saying, we only had shoes that we had to conform to people. That's crazy to think about.
Zach Lawless:Yeah, it's crazy when people think about it. At the time, there wasn't sizes like sixes, size seven, size eights. The only way you could get a shoe was going into your local cobbler. They would measure your foot. They would make a mold of your foot, which is called a last, and then they would build the boot over that last, and that was how you get shoes. You couldn't go to a store and be like, I need a size six. That didn't exist. You had to go get one made specifically for you.
Dylan Carnahan:That's really interesting, and I appreciate the context. And again, you have this inherent demand for products tailored to cowboys, and then you have someone that just simply meets that demand and does it in an innovative way.
Zach Lawless:Yeah, exactly. And I think the invention of the Cowboy Boot is what CH. Hyer is most famous for, but it's actually really interesting. So after the railroad extended back down into Texas and into Colorado, there wasn't as many cowboys coming up on the trail anymore. So business wasn't coming to CH. Hyer anymore. And in fact, business wasn't coming to most of the community anymore. And almost all of the local retailers that were supplying or businesses that were supplying the Western industry or the cowboy industry went out of business. We went from having more footwear manufacturers in the United States than anywhere besides New England to almost 90% of them going out over a 10-year period. But what CH. Hyer did was he found this invention out of London, which allowed you to trace your foot on a piece of paper and send it in through the mail. And then they would make you a boot based on your traced foot. And so he adopted that from England, brought that to the United States. And with that, he grew from being a local cobbler who was famous for vending the cowboy boot to being the nation's largest footwear manufacturer from the 1890s to the 1920s, 1930s, somewhere in there is when he got surpassed. But yeah, the mention of the cowboy boot was something that you can hang your hat on. But the actual business savvy that he had to when everybody else is going out of business, I'm going to create a new way of doing business. And that's going to allow my business to grow in a way that he could have never imagined. I think that's probably one of the coolest parts of Hyer's story.
Dylan Carnahan:No, that is well said. I think the level of business acumen on display there is there's a lot of it, as well as you have to think, as you've been supplying the context around the inventions of the time, how information travels. There's all sorts of your resources are fairly limited to, so for someone to be so resourceful, that's something to covet. Do you have any other lesser known or fascinating stories about the early days of Hyer?
Zach Lawless:Well, you're from Olathe, right?
Dylan Carnahan:Correct. Yeah.
Zach Lawless:Have you ever seen the School of Deaf and Blind in Olathe, Kansas? Actually, CH. Hyer came over working on the railroad. This is the one that there's so many things going on in the story of Hyer Boots that this gets lost, but you could create a brand just on this backstory, which is that CH. Hyer came over on the railroad, left the railroad because he didn't like the living conditions, and took a school. He was the son of a fifth-generation shoemaker out of Germany. He knew everything about boot making, stopped in town, took a job at the School of Deaf and Blind for teaching shoe and last making. What people don't realize is back in the day, it used to be called the School of the Deaf, Blind, and Dumb. If you had a child that had any of those ailments, from anywhere around the region of Kansas, you could actually send them to that school. They'd become a warden of the state, which is just a crazy thought to think about. You could just send your child who has an ailment to this school and then never have to think about it again. It's sad. But anyways, CH. Hyer actually opened up Hyer Boots as a way for the students who are living in mostly hovers conditions, to earn a little bit of extra income from the traits that he was teaching them. The store was originally started as a way for the students of the School of Deaf and Blind to earn a little bit of extra income. It grew into being this massive company. The coolest part, I think about it, is that even until my family lost the boot company in 1971, 30 percent of our workforce still came from that school.
Dylan Carnahan:What a story. Wow. That's very unique and something I didn't know about the School of the Deaf. I didn't know much about their history, so to hear that that's intertwined with them is fascinating.
Zach Lawless:Yeah, they still have a museum for Hyer Boots. Where they have a museum and there's a section for it for Hyer Boots, it's still on the campus.
Dylan Carnahan:That is for sure lesser known, I would say. I think that qualifies, Zach. Let's transition to the present. You talked a little bit at Berkshire Hathaway, a giant has this. How do you reclaim and revive the Hyer brand? You're obviously doing a little bit of telemarketing on Wednesday mornings, and it pays off. Can you go in depth for after you've done that? It's one thing to have the brand, it's another thing to form a business and to create products.
Zach Lawless:Yeah. Well, I think that as I was saying earlier, the original idea that was just to get it back is a gift for my grandmother. When you start calling every Wednesday for 18 months, at one point, I didn't really even know why I was doing it. Just felt like something that I was doing for the heck of it. But you know that passion for restoring a part of my family's history really grew to restoring a part of Western history and to restoring this to build a brand that I believe the Western community and consumer can be proud of. And so that kind of was, after 18 months, that kind of was the driving factor was, hey, there might be an opportunity to do something here. Like, let's keep calling. Let's not give up on it. And when I finally got the trademark back, there was kind of this idea of like, I didn't ever know if I was going to get it back. So now we need to do something. Here's the crazy part. I don't know anything about making Cowboy Boots, right? Because even though my great-great-grandfather invented the Cowboy Boot, the last person in my family that ever worked in a boot factory was my grandfather. So this is a completely new thing for me. And so I did a little bit of research, found out that most of the best Cowboy Boots in the world are either made in El Paso, Texas or in Mexico. I took a flight down to El Paso. I couldn't find any. This is the middle of COVID. So I get back in the middle, right in the middle of COVID, and like November of 2020. And I fly down to, or it might have been November of 2021, sorry, the dates get lost. And I fly down to El Paso and nobody will let me into the factory, not even to see if I can manufacture boots, not even try to learn. I'm trying all the excuses. I get into like a few of them just to like tell them what's going on. And every one of them has kind of the same thing, like, look, it's crazy that it's in the world right now. Boot demand is through the moon or through the roof. So it's like we have no capacity in our factory to do this. We have no ability to train you on anything, like cool story, but like can't do anything for you. So then I take a long shot and I go down to León, Mexico and I kind of get met with the same thing where they're like, hey, everything's a capacity. We probably don't have room for you right now. But there was a difference of a real willingness. I end up finding a factory down there where they're like, hey, we will bring you in. You don't know enough about boot making yet. Let's teach you about boot making. Let's talk to you about what you want to do. Let's kind of help like foster this thing forward a little bit. So that was kind of the opportunity I needed, was somebody to really just believe in me, give me the opportunity to learn about cowboy boot making. And it's crazy that it sounds, I actually went to my fiance wife at the time now, and I was like, let's move to Mexico. Let's just do this thing. Let's move to Mexico. Let's figure this all out. Middle COVID, everybody's working remotely. There's never been a better time to be able to jump in and learn boot making in Mexico. So we spent two years down there, about 18 months, and started making boots. I started off actually working with a custom bootmaker down there and learning kind of that process. Then I started working with some of the factories and their process. At that point, I figured I knew enough about it that we could jump into actually starting to produce boots, putting the other specs and working with the factory. I started making my first boots and I went back to the United States and I had this like, this was going to be the moment. I was going to show my grandmother the first pair of Hyer Boots made in over 50 years. It was going to be this beautiful moment. I made these beautiful red boots. I made them out of the best leather you possibly could. Leather is typically around $3 per square foot for good leather, and this was $9 per square foot. This was the best leather you could find. It was this beautiful red. I remember I had my wife videotaping, so that we thought she was going to cry when she got the boots. I'm like, hey, grandma, here's the first pair of Hyer Boots in over 50 years. And she looks at them and she goes, well, these aren't cowboy boots. And just put them down on the table and ask my mom when dinner was getting served. And no reaction. But that was the first moment where I was like, oh, I actually need to learn what a cowboy boot. I can't just make a good boot. At that point, I learned how to make a great boot. I learned what good construction was, all that. But I hadn't learned who my consumer was and what the product was. So we actually moved back to Kansas City. I started calling up ranchers around Kansas City and just working with cowboys to learn what was most important about their boots. We started narrowing it down and what we ended up coming out with was like, I made a dress boot. I made this fancy boot that was beautiful, but it wasn't like a real cowboy boot. What I needed to make was like what my grandfather did, which is the best tool for the job. What we ended up going with is by all accounts are really using boots, just the most durable boot that we could possibly make. From the materials that we use to the constructions that we use, one of the things we're seeing around the bat is it's not just a beautiful boot, it is a durable boot. One of the things we pat ourselves on the back is that we have real cowboys across the United States talking about the most durable boot in the world. We have fashion influencers who are wearing this boot because it's a beautiful boot, and we also have people competing at the NFR. We had like 10 athletes at the NFR on our boot this year, and a few of them were sponsored by the majority of them we didn't, and that's just because we built the best product, and I'm more proud about that than probably anything.
Dylan Carnahan:First off, what a commitment, like the tenacity to go, okay, we're going to move to Mexico, and to hear the progression of yourself, like you obtain all this knowledge that you needed to begin this journey, and then it's, oh, what about my consumer? What are they thinking? But you needed that, you needed that knowledge to even be able to execute and tailor that. Are there any specific design elements from CH. Hyer's original boot that are still used today?
Zach Lawless:Yeah, I like to say that where we're trying to position Hyer Boots is old meets new. So everything is kind of inspired through the past, and into what's that modern frame of it. So remember earlier when I saw you about the shoemakers would take a form of that person's foot, and then they would build a boot over that. That form is called a last, L-A-S-T, and that is the most integral part to building a boot. It's the first thing you have to do is build a last. That's what gives you the fit of the boot, the shape of the boot, everything. So what we actually did is we went and found like 3,000 old Hyer Lass. We took them down to Mexico, we scanned them into a 3D scanner and created a digital library of all the Lass. So it's the original fit, it's the original design shape of the boot of all that stuff. Then we modified it for the current foot. So the current foot is a little bit wider at the ball of the foot. It's got a little bit lower of an arch. So we made those adjustments. Then the toe shapes that were popular back then, like very pointed toes, very more of a fine, buoyant toe, is now the main markets in broad square toes and cut or toe boots, which they didn't have back in the day. So we added those into the toe profiles of it. But it was all built up the DNA of that old last, but with a modern toe profile. Then the other things we did is, for instance, every one of the stitch patterns, the old stitch patterns from back in the day, we have archived them because as I said, we started doing the mail order catalogs in the 1800s. So we could go back for hundreds of years and look at all the different stitch patterns. So we went and got every one of the stitch patterns on our boot is from an old Hyer stitch pattern from a catalog from before the 1930s. We wanted to make them like old stitch patterns. And then what we did is we put them on more modern leathers. So you'll look at our current boots. Back in the day, there wasn't as many different types of leathers. Back then, people would polish their boots and take care of them in a different way than they do now. Now, what's popular is really tough, durable leathers that need very little means. And so we have bull hides. We have thicker, tougher leathers than what they had back in the day. But we still have those original stitch patterns. We still have the original construction. We still have the original last. We kept the DNA the same, but made it for really a modern consumer.
Dylan Carnahan:That's very impressive, all of the work. And also to leverage the history and to incorporate that through technology into your products today. That's kind of the same ingenuity and innovation that we've talked about previously, historically with CH. So you did some product design, and you talked about kind of focusing on the consumer in today's digital era. How does Hyer engage with its community and customers?
Zach Lawless:Yeah, I think, I mean, that's the real opportunity. It's kind of funny. I say that Hyer, because we're the first male product, we're the first direct consumer boot, you know? And now we're back, and direct consumer means a whole different thing, but it's still a direct consumer. We actually have what we call an omni-channel approach. So we sell through wholesale and on our own website. And we believe that the blend of the two creates awareness, creates better brand experience for people, things of that nature. And so we do have our own digital platform. We do leverage social media and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and all of that to reach our consumer. We do digital marketing. We're working on kind of even advancing this further, starting to do geo locations around retailers and things of that nature, too. But I think digital is a part where we've kind of got the baseline down now, and we're looking at how can we continue to stay ahead of the curve on the digital front, because you're right, that's really the name of the game. But the interesting part is, too, it's like, you know, it's funny. I talk to people all the time. They're like, oh, you want to go, you got to get on TikTok, because that's where everybody is right now. And the kids are on TikTok, but majority of people who buy cowboy boots are $350 plus, and they're 30s and 40s plus in age, and they're on Facebook still. So it's like people are like, are you doing Facebook? Facebook marketing is dead is like what somebody told me the other day. I'm like, no, it's not. It still does really well. Like there's digital means digital is just another way to find your consumer, right? And you still have to identify where they are and go down in those channels.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, well said. Yeah, it's not a one size fits all approach. I mean, you have a specific target audience. Where are they at? Like TikTok is the hot new thing, but are those the people that you're going after? And I think that's a good mindset to have. So, I mean, just reflecting on some of the things that you've said. I mean, you went from, hey, this would be a cool thing for my grandmother. So obviously, I would say quite a bit of commitment. So what vision do you have for this company now?
Zach Lawless:You know, we've got really big dreams for Hyer Boots. I mean, more than... It probably even sounds crazy to even share them now. But like for starters, our main thing is it's becoming the best cowboy boot in the market. You know, that's where the foundation is. That's where we have to start. That's what we're focused on. We have some really exciting... We're really excited about our new releases for next year, continuing to build out the different categories that we touch within the Western space. We want to become a full service footwear solution for the Western lifestyle. And we're kind of building in different categories as we go along. Each one takes a different supply chain, different distribution models. So we're working on kind of bringing those all together. And one of the things that is probably more relevant on this podcast and everything else is I really dream that we can build something here that Kansas Cityans are proud of. You know, I think that right now we got a great football team. We got like a great athletics in general. And the town really gets behind it. One of the things we're lacking is a brand. I remember growing up there was a brand called Baldwin. I don't know if you remember that, but there was a national brand out of Kansas City that everyone seemed to ride for. If you were getting on a plane, you used to see that hat everywhere. And I think there's an opportunity to really build a brand around Kansas City and around Kansas in general that we can all rally around. And even that kind of goes for just the flyover states in general. I feel like all of this is either the coast or Texas where everything starts out of. And I feel like as Midwesterners, we really get behind our sports teams. We get behind everyone who represents us. And so I think there's an opportunity to be the brand that represents all the flyover states in Kansas and the Pacific.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's an ambitious goal. And I totally agree. I think, you know, the Midwestern states kind of second fiddle to what's going on on the coast. And I think as you even mentioned with athletics, you know, go look at California. They have like the state of California has 13 different professional teams in basketball, football and baseball. Yeah, that's a lot. You know, are there any, you know, you mentioned a couple projects. Are there any kind of recent developments or things that you'd like to share?
Zach Lawless:I mean, no, I think we just released our or we will be releasing our new line. So we have, like I said, our core using boot line. And then we have what we're calling the kind of our heritage line that we that we released a smaller release. But it's some remakes of some of the historic boots and things of that nature that just tell stories like remakes of my grandmother's little boot and things of that nature. But that was a smaller release for us. We released some additional styles of our core line as well to our what we call our horseman line. And next year, we've got some really fun things going on. Our goal is to bring innovation into the product line the same way that CH. Hyer did. And we've got some really cool great things in the pipeline that will be coming out kind of towards the beginning of next year.
Dylan Carnahan:That's exciting. That's exciting. I want to focus on you a little bit more here. So, I mean, what is it? What does it mean to you personally to be a part of kind of this history and to be on this journey?
Zach Lawless:It's a good question. I think for me personally, you know, I think every kid dreams of like going into the basement and uncovering a box that leads them on a treasure hunt of some sort. And for me, that's been like a real reality. So it's been, there's been a feeling of, just like, I don't know, gratitude to be able to be the one that carries the torch. There's definitely a lot of responsibility that goes for it. You know, there's, I feel like, you know, I want to make sure that you make your grandmother proud, your family proud, everything. There's a different level. I had another business before this, and I felt like, you know what, it's my thing. I don't have anybody that I need to answer to or anything like that. But this one definitely feels like there's a responsibility towards my family as well beyond just like a normal business, which is in a lot of ways, a lot of ways like a real blessing in itself, too, because it kind of brings everyone together. And it's another reason to to like call grandma on the weekend or call your cousins or work with your cousins or work with your family and things like that. There's a few family members that are on the team as well, too. So it's been really great to be able to do that. I think overall one of the things I talk a lot about in this brand and in this and what we're trying to build and just kind of an overall motivation for me in life is that I think everybody dreams of leading a legacy of some some sort. I know that I've always been enamored by the people in history that have accomplished things big enough to be able to leave a legacy. And I think one of the really great things about Hyer Boots is that even though there hasn't been a boot with a higher name on it for 80 years, that I relaunched it and people are coming up to me and they're talking about how they buried their grandparents in Hyer Boots. They're talking about when they back Pro Rodeo and the only boot that anybody would wear was Hyer Boots. There's a lasting legacy from the innovation and from the product that outlived my great great grandfather, that outlived even the company. And I think to be able to leave something like that is so amazing. It is such an aspiration. And I think that I hope that with Hyer Boots, my great great grandfather had a company that lasted almost 100 years and left a lasting legacy. And I hope that we can pick that back up and make as meaningful of an impact and that my great great grandkids can be running the business someday. And so there's there's an aspect of legacy that is really meaningful to not only be able to pick up, but to be able to potentially hopefully leave behind as well, too.
Dylan Carnahan:Well, Zach, we're rooting for you. The question I lastly have for you is how do we support you? How can we find out more about you and Hyer?
Zach Lawless:Yeah, for sure. We like I said, we sell off of our website, hyerboots.com. We also have a dealer locator on there as well, too. So I always suggest people go into the dealer locator, go find the nearest retailer and go into the store and pick up a pair of Hyer Boots. Cowboy Boots, they don't have laces. They're a harder fit than just about any other boot. So if you don't know your sizes, it's really good to go into a store and check it out, support our retailers that are supporting us as well, too. But yeah, either through hyerboots.com, our retailer locator so that you can find the nearest store by you, or even just following us on social media through either Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube. Those are the main channels in which we give updates. And sign up for our mailing list. We do a lot of stuff on our mailing list. That is if you're just trying to follow along and see what's going on and get a good look at the products and everything, our mailing list is kind of the best way to stand in touch. There's a pop-up on our website when you go there that will allow you to sign up.
Dylan Carnahan:Fantastic. I'll make sure that we have all that information included in the show notes for this episode. Zach, thank you for sharing your knowledge and time today. That wraps up our conversation with Zach. We talked about how Hyer Boots reclaimed their name, the design elements incorporated within their boots today, and a piece of American history. Go to this episode's show notes to see any resources Zach mentioned during our episode. And lastly, subscribe to the Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening, and remember to keep asking questions.