Distinctly Montana Magazine

51 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m MIKE RYAN BOOTMAKER INDUCTED 2025 Mike Ryan started making custom boots in 1985, when he attended a five-and-a-half day school under the tutelage of carpen- ter-turned-bootmaker Mike Ives in Lock- wood, an unincorporated community on the banks of the Yellowstone. Those five and a half days were the only formal training that Mike Ryan ever received in his trade, and he walked out the door in the boots that he made that week. "They'll probably set these up at my funeral," he says in a tone of both pride and amusement, as he holds up the boots for the camera. Born on a ranch in Brusett, about forty miles northwest of Jordan, Mike as- pired at the age of sixteen to buy Jordan's only boot repair shop from its own- er, Lloyd Burchett, a man who after a childhood bout with polio wore a brace on one leg. At seventeen, Mike deployed to the Navy and served in Vietnam. When he returned home, Burchett had already sold the business, so Mike got a job at Al's Bootery in Billings, where half his wages were paid by the GI Bill and half by the shop's owner. Mike recounts that he fell right into the work from the beginning, even before his training in Lockwood–so much so that his supervisor, a one-legged man "with a wood stob at the end," accused him of being "a lying son-of-a-b****" when Mike said he had never worked in a shoe shop before. "It's a lot easier to do a thing if you've got a knack for it," Mike says now. "It's a lot easier to do something if you understand." Mike's shop, where he raised both his children "because I was too cheap to hire a babysitter," holds a plethora of hand tools and machines. Some ma- chines can be used for both custom and repair jobs. The post machine, for example, does a much more precise job of patching than a dedicated patch machine. Other machines are good for one task only, such as the zigzag machine used for sewing together the back of lace-up shoes. "Very seldom do I ever zigzag anything," Mike says. "I'm not much of a zigzagger." He explains that some boots are made the same as they always have been– leather uppers, wood-pegged soles–but a lot of brands have switched from leather to hard plastic, which makes repairs more difficult. There are some repairs he won't even attempt, because he knows from decades of experi- ence that it's hopeless–dog-eaten shoes, for example, are almost always beyond repair, and a sign on his shop's front door states as much. There will always be people who prefer to fix their shoes, Mike says, rather than throw them away and buy new. This desire is what keeps him in business, but at the same time, "I don't have time to explain for fifteen to twenty minutes why something can't be done. If it can't be done, it can't be done. It's that simple." Mike moved to Helena in 1986, when there were five shoe repair shops in town, although even back then, he was the only bootmaker. He's now the only shoe repair place left, and has over the course of his career made over 5,000 pairs of boots for hundreds of people all over the country. "I retired nine years ago," Mike explains, "so I'm not taking any new customers. But an old custom boot customer comes in and wants a pair of boots, I'll do it. And now what they're doing, some of my old customers will come in and say, 'You know, I think I'll order two pair. That way if you die, I'll have two more pair.' So I'm running into that now. The older I get, I'll probably be making three pairs at a time." He laughs, and affirms, "I'll keep doing it the rest of my life, I guess. Gotta do something. And I enjoy it, so why not do it?" "I RETIRED NINE YEARS AGO, SO I'M NOT TAKING ANY NEW CUSTOMERS. BUT AN OLD CUSTOM BOOT CUSTOMER COMES IN AND WANTS A PAIR OF BOOTS, I'LL DO IT." ERIC HEIDLE AND MONTANA ARTS COUNCIL (2)

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