Dave Hutchings

History

Dave Hutchings was a Colorado bootmaker who taught Jim Brainard repair work in the 1970s and boot making itself after 2008. Brainard describes him as “Hutch” Hutchings, a third-generation bootmaker, who ran a two-week basic course covering what Brainard had not learned during his earlier repair apprenticeship.

Colorado Community Media profiled him in 2011 as a custom bootmaker who had worked at Parker Western Outfitters starting in 1974, later taught bootmaking and opened another shop elsewhere in Colorado, and by then worked from a home shop he called Hutch's Custom Bootmakers while also working in Brainard's Parker shop. He told the paper: “I love the creativity when it comes to boot making and it is considered art now.” The Gazette, in 2010, described him as a bootmaker in Thornton and a board member of the Boot & Saddle Makers Trade Show Roundup in Wichita Falls, quoting him on fellow bootmaker Ed Martin's boots.

Sources differ on the spelling of his later town — Thornton in The Gazette, “Thorton” in bootmaking-school directories — and on when he died: directories put it in November 2018, without a specific day confirmed elsewhere.

Sources

• Jim Brainard interview, The Cowboy Bootmakers (25 April 2019)
• Colorado Community Media, “Boot makers craft art, friendship” (5 November 2011)
• Jennifer June, Bootmaking Schools, updated 28 April 2023
• Ruth Moon, “Built to last: Ed Martin has been crafting handmade boots for 70-plus years,” The Gazette (27 August 2010)
• Jennifer June, USA bootmaker list, updated 2 May 2024