One day I got to delve into Nocona’s leather working history.
I started off with a tour at the Nocona Glove Company, which is the only leather baseball glove company that manufactures in the United States. The gloves have “Nokona” printed on them though. When the original Grandpa Story went to trademark the company, the copyright office told him that he couldn’t spell the company “Nocona” because there was a town in Texas by the same name. Well duh.
So Mr. Story replaced the “c” with a “k” and told people that it was the original Native American spelling of the town’s name. Turns out after some research that Nocona can be spelled at least 2 additional ways, including with a “k”.
The company started out making leather embossed wallets and purses. Then, when the Great Depression hit, people were not buying things to put money in because they didn’t have any money to put in the wallets and purses. To roll with the times, Mr. Story (who was also the bank president when he took over the business) decided to make baseball gloves. Additionally, the Nokona name has appeared on a variety of sporting equipment, including baseball bats, as well as night-vision goggles manufactured for the U.S. Military during World War II. Mr. Story was also responsible for the shape of the modern football. The company manufactured leather football helmets and footballs until Mr. Story noticed that the rounder footballs, much like a rugby ball, could only be passed and not thrown. Mr. Story designed a football with pointed ends, to officially make football a throwing game.
Nokona gloves are very well known within the baseball community. Nolan Ryan’s first glove when he was seven years old was a Nokona glove, and the company even made him a replica of his first glove for his induction into the baseball hall of fame.
To this day, the Nocona Glove Company is the only baseball glove company with the capability to custom-make gloves. They manufacture special editions and personalized gloves for special occasions. For example, when the TCU baseball team won the national championship a few years ago, Nocona made them a line of purple and white gloves embroidered with the logo and date of the championship. They also will customize pastel blue or pink baby-sized gloves with your newborn’s name and date of birth. Awwww.
A lot more goes into making a baseball glove than you ever imagined. First, you start with a great piece of leather. They use mostly cowhide, but they also had some buffalo which is very tough, and some kangaroo (poor Austin College) which is soft and very strong.
Then they cut the leather into the various shapes. You have the back of the glove and all the fingers. Before the glove is sewn together, the pieces might be branded, stamped, embroidered, or have a logo or American flag sewn onto them. They essentially turn the gloves inside out and begin sewing together, putting in padding and an inner lining in the palm of the glove. There are people sewing all over the place, and there is a guy who actually turns the glove inside out. People are constantly checking for imperfections in the glove and the leather, so there are multiple quality control checkpoints since the glove will pass through numerous hands.
O, you know how you always see baseball players hitting the palm of the glove with their fist? There is a machine that does that to break in the glove. Haha.
The Story Family still owns and operates the business, which is pretty cool. They know every one of their employees by name and are looking to expand their workforce, but they are having difficulties finding people who can sew.
Next, we went over to the Montague Boot Company. The Boot Company exclusively hand makes the Larry Mahan line of boots for Cavanders western stores. The process between the boot and glove companies is actually fairly parallel. You start out with beautiful huge pieces of leather. Except in the boot business you get a wider variety of exotic skins: alligator, crocodile, ostrich, snake, buffalo, bison, etc. There are workers that cut the leather into the shape needed, then the pieces of leather are embroidered for that traditional cowboy boot look. The shaft of the boot is sewn together, followed by the top of the foot. Finger pulls are added with the signature “u” sewing shape. The soles are assembled separately, and are connected to the leather top of the boot around a plastic “foot” basically, which gives the boot its shape – round toe, square toe, D-snip. Finally, all of the stuff on the bottom of the boot is put on: the bottom sole, an arch support, and the heel with a coat of stain. The boots get a coat of polish and a quality control check before being boxed up and shipped out. Oh! And of course that plastic “foot” that the whole boot was modeled around comes out!
I was blessed with my own pair of hand-made Larry Mahan Cowboy Boots made right there in Nocona, Texas before I left the factory that day! Yee Haw! And I must say, I have worn them a lot since then, and they are the most comfortable shoes I think I’ve ever owned.
