Texas Got It Right!. Sam Wyly
I don’t believe we will ever know, nor should we need it
any longer. They are Houstonians.″ Top: Road signs like this one
can be found at every entry point to Texas. Above: A sign at the
George Brown Convention Center in Houston touts the large
number of quilts being provided for Katrina evacuees.
TEXAS GOT IT RIGHT!
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There’s something about the Lone Star State that
just gets under your skin, no matter where you
come from or what you believe. If you live here long
enough, eventually you’re going to stop thinking of
yourself as a Texan Jew or Christian or Muslim and
start thinking of yourself as a Jewish or Christian
or Muslim Texan. And it won’t be long before you
go out and buy yourself a pair of cowboy boots.
They are the reigning symbol of Texas culture for
good reason: Cowboy boots are how we tell the
world we’re Texan, and they’re also how we express
ourselves. Walk into almost any boot store in the
TEXAS GOT IT RIGHT!
32
state and you’ll see hundreds if not thousands of
designs and patterns and styles—and if you don’t
see something you like, there are plenty of custom
boot makers who will craft a pair just for you. It’s
only appropriate that the father of custom cowboy
boot–making in Texas was an immigrant, a Sicilian
named Salvatore Lucchese. He and his sons and
grandsons have made boots by hand in their El Paso
workshop for everyone from Teddy Roosevelt to
LBJ to Francisco Madero, the leader of the revolu-
tion that brought democracy to Mexico in the early
20th century.
Opposite: Lucchese released 125 pairs
of these special boots, which retailed for
$12,500, to celebrate its 125th anniver-
sary. This page, clockwise from top: The
Alamo Plaza Lucchese Building in the
1940s; these custom-made cowboy
boots, created by a craftsman at the
Justin Boot Co., were featured on the
cover of 2007’s Lone Stars of David: The
Jews of Texas; Zsa Zsa Gabor gets fitted
for Lucchese boots in the 1950s.
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