Abilene · History

History

Abilene is a Pennsylvania boot brand, not a Texas one. The company’s own history, which Boot Barn reprints, says the Abilene label was introduced in 1980 as the western division of the B.B. Walker Company. In 2002 a team of the company’s managers bought the Abilene division and set it up as Abilene Boot Company, which it says is still entirely privately held by its members. B.B. Walker was a North Carolina footwear maker. Its founder built a shoe factory in Asheboro in 1947, and production there ended in 2001. Somerset County property records list Abilene Boot Co., Inc. as the owner of a parcel on South Center Avenue in Somerset that it got from the B B Walker Company.

The company is at 841 South Center Avenue in Somerset, Pennsylvania. It says the Somerset factory has been making footwear since the 1940s, and elsewhere that the factory has been “rooted in Somerset, Pennsylvania since 1948,” turning out “hundreds of thousands of boots for brands big and small.” Its “Affordable Quality” slogan dates from 1980. The Better Business Bureau lists the business as started in 2002, with French Humphries as president and Ross Auman as treasurer. A 2026 made-in-USA buying guide calls Auman co-owner and chief operating officer and puts the workforce at about 100. Sheplers likewise credits the brand with nearly 100 jobs in Somerset.

The dates can look like they disagree, but they describe different things: the 1940s for the Somerset factory, 1980 for the Abilene brand, and 2002 for the company that owns it now. Today Abilene Boot Company also makes Silverado work boots. It has also sold Rawhide boots and the Sage line, which the current site lists as kids’ boots and older retailer pages showed as ladies’ fashion boots. Abilene has nothing to do with the custom bootmakers who worked in Abilene, Texas, such as James Leddy and Tex Robin.

The boots

Abilene makes everyday western boots in genuine leather, including cowhide and bison. The company says they are Goodyear welted, so they can be resoled. Since at least the early 2000s the brand has advertised its AirRide Comfort System. A dealer described it as a urethane cushion insole, a leather heel pad over foam, and foam filler between the insole and the leather outsole.

Being American-made is central to the brand. In 2012 the official site said Abilene boots “have been made exclusively in the United States since 1980.” The same site also said the company made “almost all” of its western boots in the U.S.A., and a dealer’s page from the same period said “most.” So an older pair may not be American-made, and the label inside is the only proof.