The History Store History

The cowboy boot as we know it today, as an icon of the American West and the rough riding and spirited cowboys who wore them, is a style of boot actually born far from North America as part of the military dress of Hessian (German) soldiers in the 18th century. The Hessian boot was characterized by a high shaft decorated with a tassel at the front, which was cut at a v-shape. The tip of the boot was narrowed and it had low heels that were adapted for ease of use with the riding stirrup.

The journey of the Hessian boot to the cowboy boot of the wild west was helped along by England’s Duke of Welllington, Arthur Wellesley, who took the original Hessian style of boot and had the design altered for his own use towards the middle of the 1800’s. His version of the boot, which came to be termed the Wellington, had a shorter shaft cut to mid-calf and was more closely fitted than the Hessian original. This boot quickly became popular with his compatriots and eventually made its way to the United States where it was widely worn among soldiers in the Civil War and then by those involved in the expansion of the western frontier: the cowboys of the American imagination.

The cowboy boot, an evolution of the Wellington (which also later would be more firmly associated with the rubber material version rather than the original leather version), was distinct for its ornamentation and slight variation on the Wellington style; they originally did not have as pointed a toe as the Wellington and some alternatives had the cut of the shaft higher at the front or decorated with inlaid ornamentation. By the 1950’s, the cowboy boot was popularized to an extraordinary extent by the film industry. Hollywood proliferated the image of the heroic cowboy and the fashion for cowboy boots was no longer confined to the great wide open frontiers or the rural lifestyle but became tokens of independent spirit for the urban style-setter as well.