Lucchese · History

Company history

Lucchese Boot Company is the manufacturing house that grew from the 1883 San Antonio shop opened by Sicilian immigrants Salvatore “Sam” Lucchese and his brother Joseph near Fort Sam Houston. Early customers included cavalry officers.

For the founder’s biography, see Sam Lucchese. The chronology below follows the company, its factories, and its product lines. Sam Lucchese the person is not this page.

• 1883: Sam Lucchese (Salvatore, 1868–1929) and his brother Joseph opened a shop near Fort Sam Houston. Early customers included cavalry officers.
• Family leadership: Cosimo Lucchese took daily management after Sam’s 1923 stroke and incorporated Lucchese Boot Company after Sam’s death in 1929. Samuel J. Lucchese led the company after Cosimo’s death in 1960.
• Around 1970: The company was sold to Blue Bell, parent of Wrangler, ending day-to-day family ownership. Sources differ on the exact year.
• 1986: Lucchese moved its headquarters and production from San Antonio to El Paso.
• 1998 onward: The company entered Arena Brands / Hat Brands ownership. It adopted the Lucchese Bootmaker name in 2012.
• 1949: Secondary company histories, including the Lucchese Wikipedia entry already cited below, describe a State Boots Collection commissioned through an Acme advertising campaign. Those accounts say fewer than about twenty-five pairs survive. The official timeline also names Hollywood entries beginning with Josephine Hutchinson in 1934 and Bing Crosby in 1942.
• 2009: The same company synthesis records Texas Legislature recognition in HCR 226.
• 2023–2025: The official timeline dates a Chris Stapleton collaboration to 2023, names Lucchese the official boot of the Dallas Cowboys in 2024, and places Parker McCollum’s Encore Collection and a Post Malone Paris runway debut in 2025.
• El Paso plant, 2025 press. Fox Business (25 October 2025) quotes vice president Doug Hogue saying as many as 200 artisans may touch each boot at the El Paso factory. The El Paso Times (5 April 2025) reports a downtown El Paso flagship as the 20th Texas store and the 27th nationwide. A reprinted October 1986 article in that same piece says the move sat Lucchese in a separate corner of Acme’s Dan Post operation and names longtime makers Gilbert and Jesse Garcia.