Marc Cruz / Way Out West Boots · History

Why collectors care

Most of the boots the Cruz family has built since 1950 went out the door under someone else’s name. That is the collector problem and the collector opportunity: a pair marked T.O. Stanley from the early 1980s, or later production credited to Ben Miller, Tony Lama, or Ammons, may carry Cruz-shop hands underneath. Today the shop’s work is sold under one label, Way Out West Boots, which is the first time the bench has been easy to buy directly.

This page is the craft credit. Way Out West Boots is the brand and the fitting operation; Marc Cruz and the family shop in El Paso are the builders.

The shop

The Cruz family shop opened in El Paso in 1950. Juan Cruz built boots there from 1950 until 2020 — seventy years at the bench — and his son Marc Cruz carries the shop today. Per the family, when T.O. Stanley came to El Paso looking for the best makers he ended up at the Cruz shop, and from 1980 to 1986 the Cruzes built Stanley’s boots. That window matches the early years of the T.O. Stanley Boot Company (founded 1979), before Stanley told Texas Monthly he had stopped building pairs himself.

Way Out West Boots’ own copy adds that the shop has built for Ben Miller, Tony Lama, Ammons, and T.O. Stanley, and for Tom Taylor in Santa Fe. Four different pairs from the shop have appeared in Cowboys & Indians magazine, none of them solicited.

William Miller, who has been measuring feet since 1979 and was raised in a full-line western store, runs Way Out West Boots from Fort Worth. He takes the measurements and the order — at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo and by appointment — and the Cruz shop builds the pair.

Commissioning

Custom, made-to-measure only, through Way Out West Boots: measured by William Miller in Fort Worth (Stock Show & Rodeo, Row 900 North, or by appointment), built in El Paso by the Cruz shop.