The Texas Bucket List – Rios of Mercedes Boot Company in Mercedes

Nowadays, you can get all sorts of boots made with all sorts of things and in all sorts of colors. Here in Texas, there are manufacturers in every section of the state, but down in the Valley over in Mercedes, just a few miles from the border to Mexico, you’ll find the Rios of Mercedes Boot Company.

“There’s people that want to know where their products come from and want to know the story. And we’ve got a pretty good one here,” said CEO of Rios of Mercedes Boot Company Ryan Vaughn.

Since 1999, Vaughn has been working at Rios of Mercedes. His family is fifth generation of Rio Grande Valleyites. Together with his wife, Jodi, they lead a team of craftsmen and artisans that help build their brands of boots, including Anderson Bean and Olathe Boots. “I have a hard-working team that really cares. They love building stuff and really take a lot of pride in what they do.”

Rios of Mercedes started in Mexico back in 1853 by the Rios family as a manufacturer of cavalry boots for the Mexican military. In 1908, they moved operations to the Valley and opened a boot shop in 1928. In 1975, Joe and Trainor Evans, Ryan’s in-laws, bought the business and kicked into high gear.

I got to take a walk around the leather warehouse and the variety was amazing! Lots of colors, lots of different animals. While the majority of leather is cow hide and goats, there’s some fun ones too like Texas rattlesnakes, American alligator, and even stingray. One of the unique ones in the last seven or eight years, according to Ryan, is the arapaima which is a fish down out of the Amazon. “It’s fun to be creative and to be unique. I never thought I had that in me as I never was artistic and I’m still not,” Ryan said. But their designing of boots is limitless. The shaft of the boot is usually the most embellished part of the footwear. The only problem is most people wear their jeans over the boots, making it sort of a mystery and hiding some of the amazing designs.

“So one of the things about buying a handmade boot is that you can re-craft them and you’re going to spend a little bit more money on the front end but whenever you see these guys that are yearly using these boots as a tool, when they burn through their soles, they send them back and we do a complete re-craft job,” Ryan said.

How many repairs do you guys get a day or a week, a year? “We do about 15 or 20 pair a day.” Really? “Yeah.” Wow. That’s something else. “Yeah. It’s also a pain in the butt.” That’s very, very noble of you guys to keep up with it. “We wish there was enough small boot guys left around still to do this because it used to not be that big of a business. But when you do repair work and there’s nothing else to repair because everything’s throwaway society. Not a whole lot to do anymore. And so a lot of those guys have shut down and so people are sending their stuff back to us.”

The boots differ more than the diverse population of Texas. But it’s the people that make the boots that make the difference at Rios of Mercedes. They’ve got a lot of seasoned veterans, but some young ones too. “We’ve been doing it for a long time and doing it the right way and I think people appreciate that,” Ryan said.

Taking a tour of a big boot manufacturing facility in the far south part of our state is a fascinating stop on The Texas Bucket List. “I mean, what better way to be Texan than to wear boots that are made in South Texas?”