Shorty Golden (Lillard Lawton Golden) · History

Biography

Lillard Lawton Golden, known as Shorty Golden, was born on 30 September 1926 to Gilbert Golden and Cordie Mae Hinson Golden in Coryell County, Texas. He served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army in World War II.

He started making boots in 1949 at the Ray Jones Shop in Lampasas, Texas. After about a year he spent nearly a year in Montana, returned to Texas, worked in Temple, and then opened and ran the Golden Boot Shop in Belton for more than forty years.

The Art of the Boot biography says he raised cattle and was an avid gardener. It records a marriage to Zetta Golden on 14 July 1990, names sons Scooter and Jim Golden, and gives his death year as 2014. A Belton-area obituary for Zetta Rose Jones Golden (d. 13 September 2021) confirms a Belton Golden household and does not name Lillard, Scooter, or Jim in the published survivor list.

The primary biography source is the Art of the Boot Instagram post of 13 September 2020. The caption states that the biography is mostly copied from Mark Fletcher (@markfletcher4911). Credit Mark Fletcher via Art of the Boot. An open-web funeral notice for Lillard Lawton Golden himself was not recovered from the Belton-area funeral listings checked against the 2014 death year.

Ray Jones lineage

Shorty belongs in the Ray Jones shop alumni graph beside Pablo Jass. Jones is the Lampasas bench known as the King of the Pegs.

Shop Talk / Illume Connect’s Ray Jones feature lists workers who became notable makers, including Lillard “Shorty” Lawton alongside Pablo Jass, Bonner Williams, and others. That “Shorty Lawton” string may name Lillard Lawton Golden, or it may name a distinct maker. Do not merge IDs until a source ties the strings.