Celebrated Texas bootmaker eager to pass on knowledge

After 42 years, Lee Miller wants to train new footwear crafters.

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Lee Miller ’s cluttered workspace in a small wooden struc ture behind his South Austin home could serve as a time capsule preserving the art and craft of his trade: custom-made cowboy boots.

Scraps of leather, old hand tools and glue pots compete for space on work tables with curls of thread, coffee cups and boots in various stages of progress. Wooden and plastic foot molds, or “lasts,” hang from the ceiling like roosting bats.

The scent of leather fills the room, along with the sound of a hammer tapping. From a speaker comes a medley of tunes by the likes of Neil Young and Lyle Lovett.

This is the life Miller has made for himself for four decades since hitching on with an old, itinerant bootmaker who agreed to pass along his craft. And now, at 62, Miller sees it as his turn — his duty — to do the same.

“This shop was started with the intention of training people to where (the craft) will continue,” Miller said. “And now I’ve been doing it for 42 years. And I need to pass it on.”

The man who makes cowboy boots for such quintessential Texans as Lovett, Tommy Lee Jones and Willie Nelson is actually a Yankee.

Lee Miller grew up in Rutland, Vt., an archetypal New England town known not so much for Western wear as for maple syrup, snowshoes and the Green Mountains.

His grandfather had a clothing store, and Miller started helping out in the shoe department. In school, he gravitated toward art classes. Outside of school, he liked rock ’n’ roll and wearing cowboy boots. It was, after all, the ’60s. Boots and jeans were part of the counterculture look.

As a teenager, he took a job with a shoe and boot repair shop. He tried to make a pair of boots but