Larry Mahan · History

Why collectors care

Larry Mahan on a pair is a licensed namesake western-boot line, not a bench artisan ID. The person Larry Mahan was a rodeo champion. The boots were produced in the El Paso / Hyer / Tony Lama orbit.

Taxonomy here is manufacturing company / licensed line. Related cards are Tony Lama and Hyer Boot Company.

Line history

USPTO mark LARRY MAHAN for boots, serial 73071462, registration 1,096,062, names owner Ben Miller Boot Company, Inc., El Paso, filed 11 December 1975, registered 11 July 1978, expired 19 April 1999. The record prints first use 13 September 1974 and first commerce 6 January 1975, with consent of the living individual.

A 2007 Wayback capture of larrymahan.com says that by his 1977 rodeo retirement he had already established the Larry Mahan Boot Collection and clothing, later added hats with Milano in 1984, and later sold a boot collection through Cavender’s.

TSHA’s Tony Lama Company entry records that in 1987 Tony Lama established New Heyer Company by purchasing Heyer Company, “maker of Larry Mahan Boots,” and that this company no longer operates. The Justin merger followed in August 1990. Encyclopedia.com’s Justin history instead says mid-1980s Justin acquired the Larry Mahan line of boots from Hyer Boot. Those may be sequential. Who lasted the first Mahan pairs — Olathe Hyer versus El Paso Ben Miller — is not settled here.

Kansas Historical Society notes Hyer sold in 1968 to M.O.B. and in 1977 to Ben Miller of El Paso, with the Olathe plant closed in 1978. A 1967 founding year appears only on later third-party sites and is not used.