Boot Manufacturer
Ben Miller Boot Company
Ben Miller Boot Company of El Paso bought the Hyer boot business in 1977 and moved its boot-making equipment out of Olathe, Kansas. Accounts differ on what came next: one history says Miller phased out the Hyer brand, while another says the name was revived in the 1990s. No details of the firm's own founding or bench work were documented.
Related: Hyer Boot Company · C.H. Hyer · C. A. Hyer · Olathe Boot Company
History
Ben Miller Boot Company was an El Paso firm that bought the Hyer boot business in 1977. The Kansas Historical Society’s Kansapedia entry on Hyer cowboy boots says that in 1977 the Hyer name was sold to the Ben Miller Boot Company of El Paso, and that Olathe Boot Company, founded in 1975, hired several former Hyer employees and purchased some of the Hyer equipment. A second Kansapedia page says Miller moved all of the Hyer boot-making equipment to El Paso and brought the Hyer name back in the 1990s.
Wikipedia’s Hyer Boot Company entry says the Hyer family sold the business in 1977 to Ben Miller, which moved operations and phased out the Hyer brand — a different account of the name’s fate than the “brought the name back” sentence above. No founder’s life dates, address, or output figures survive for Ben Miller Boot Company itself.
Known for
1977 buyer of the historic Hyer boot business