SEPTEMBER 2019 59
all,” Camargo says. “His de-
signs did much to put Rios
of Mercedes on the map,
and some are still used by
the company.”
Camargo ultimately
left Rios of Mercedes and
worked at other bootmak-
ing companies. Throughout that time, and even after Cam-
argo opened his own shop, Sanchez, who eventually left Rios
of Mercedes a nd went i nto busi ness for h i msel f, rema i ned h is
mentor up until his death. Today, Camargo’s Western Boots is
a two-person operation comprised of Henry and his brother,
Santos, who has his own connection to a bootmaking legend.
He worked for Lee Miller in Austin and Miller learned from
Charlie Dunn, the famous bootmaker memorialized in the
eponymous Jerry Jeff Walker song.
Camargo’s specialty is creating images on the shafts of
his boots. He shows me a pair of black boots with a 1955
Chevrolet Apache pickup on each shaft. It’s amazingly re-
alistic, right down to the truck’s turquoise paint job. I see
other boots that have Texas state flags, motorcycles, and
rodeo riders on their shafts. “Right now,” Camargo says,
“I’m tooling the leather image of a goddess to go on some
boots I’m making.”
I decide to stick to tradition, however, when I place my
order. I leave whatever shaft-stitching Camargo wants to
do up to him—trusting his artistic eye—as I order a pair
of black calf-skin boots. He traces and measures my feet,
works out some calculations, and gives me a price for the
boots. It’s about half of what I expected to spend. Some
bootmakers charge $2,500 and more, and customers
have to wait for years to get their orders. Meanwhile, fac-
tory-made cowboy boots from China can be purchased at
discount stores for $200 or less.
I paid Armando’s Boot Co. $700 for my bull-hides. Ca-
margo prices my calf-skins at roughly half that. “Man, I
work in the Valley,” Camargo says. “I can’t charge what
t hose g uys up i n Aust i n a nd Da l la s get. People here c a n’t
afford that.” I let that register. Then I order a second pair.
Camargo is someone I could spend all day hanging
around with, but soon enough I’m back on US 281, rel-
ishing in my bounty. I’m the soon-to-be owner of three
pairs of the Valley’s finest “manly footwear”—pairs 16,
17, and 18 in my collection. I’m now part of a bootmak-
ing tradition that began in earnest on the north side of
the Rio Grande the same time as the U.S. Constitution
was drafted.
Armando Rios Jr. will certainly keep the Rios family’s
heritage alive and well. But it’s unclear who will be Cam-
argo’s successor in Mercedes. Good thing there are a num-
ber of young upstarts active in the Valley with the potential
to fill his boots.
Clockwise from left:
Armando’s Boot Co.
showroom; a new design
for boots at Camargo’s;
one of the sewing machines
at Armando’s Boot Co.