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This photograph shows employees of the Hyer Boot Company in Olathe, Kansas. Pictured in the photograph are, left to right: unknown, Lorne Hedenstrom, John Travis, unknown, John Thiel, John Pender, Charles H. Hyer, Lar Thiel, Pete Johnson, and Bill Hyer. Charles H. Hyer, the son of an immigrant German shoemaker, arrived in Leavenworth in 1870 and worked, for a time, building railroads. He soon moved to Olathe and got a job teaching shoe and harness making at the Kansas School for the Deaf. With the money he saved, he opened his own shoemaking shop in Olathe and asked his brother, Ed, to join him in running the business. In the years that followed, the Hyers developed a measurement chart to send out with their flyers that enabled customers, even cowboys at the remotest ranches, to order custom made boots to fit their precise size and fashion preference. The business blossomed and, by 1900, it had grown from two employees to 15. During World War I, the Hyers made boots for the officers at Fort Leavenworth and at Camp Funston. By the 1960s more than 70 people were busy making boots for a worldwide clientele.
Date: Between 1895 and 1900
Item Number: 314165
Call Number: FK2.J4 O.3 Ma.Hye *30
KSHS Identifier: DaRT ID: 314165
Business and Industry - Manufacturing - Boots
Business and Industry - Occupations/Professions - Bootmakers
Business and Industry - Retail - Boot and shoe stores
Business and Industry - Services - Bootmakers
Collections - Photograph - Hyer Boot Company
Objects and Artifacts - Communication Artifacts - Documentary Artifact - Photograph
Places - Cities and towns - Olathe
Places - Counties - Johnson
Type of Material - Photographs
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/314165