Palace Boot Shop, located in downtown Houston from 1919-2005, and a little about Lucchese

Search though I did, I couldn’t turn up much information about Palace Boot Shop, in business in Houston, Texas, from 1919 until 2005. Eighty-seven years of making custom boots and performing wonders with boots in need of repair. Why would I know that Paul Newman was a customer of Palace Boots? Apparently, he was, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle, March 5, 2005. I found an another article about the closing of Palace, written by a Houston attorney for the February 26, 2005 edition of the Chronicle. He started buying boots at Palace in the early 1970s. However you do the math, that’s at least 30 years of patronage. Not only did Palace make boots, they carried brands like Lucchese of San Antonio, another maker with a proud history in Texas. Lucchese, founded in 1883 by Sam Lucchese, stayed in the family until 1970, when Lucchese’s grandson sold the company to Blue Bell, Incorporated, the parent company of Wrangler. I have owned a few pair of Lucchese boots, and hang on to them still, even though my cranky left foot just doesn’t want to spend any time at all in boots any more, even though there was a time when these very same pairs of boots were like putting your hand in a pair of buckskin gloves.

The pair of boots pictured here are customs made by Palace Boot Shop. They weren’t made for me—I bought them second hand—but they fit me well, if only my feet would agree. This extreme “pointy-toed” model is called “cockroach killers” and “roach stompers” by some. According to an article by Joe Nick Patoski from June, 2002, “Your choice of toe reveals what kind of person you are. Rock stars and fashionmongers gravitate to pointy toes, also known as pin box toes, roach stompers, and fence climbers. Yes, they’re trendy, but they're actually the kind grandpa used to wear when he rode horses (the pointy toe makes it easier to stick the boot into the stirrup)."