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A Ramblin’ Trail to Custom Bootmaker
For Clay and Wendy Miller, the saying “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is not a cliché. It’s their guiding principle. It’s how they persevered and built a thriving custom boot business in Cowtown.
After being laid off from his corporate job, Clay spent some time at a ranch of some friends in Sierra Blanca, which Clay calls “The Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas,” but is actually in the Trans-Pecos near El Paso. He met the nephew of a local boot making family in, of all places, the parking lot of the local Walmart. This chance meeting sparked something in Clay. He wanted to learn all about the custom boot business.
According to Clay, “It’s kind of a running joke in the boot world that behind every successful bootmaker, there’s a spouse at home with a hell of a good job.” In the Millers’ case, this is true. Wendy is a physical therapist. When Clay came back from the Trans-Pecos full of boot dreams, Wendy told him that if selling boots was what he wanted to do, he’d better go figure out how to sell boots.
photo credit: Angela Weaver
The bootmakers Clay met in Sierra Blanca “had all the knowledge in the world, but they needed help drumming up business.” Clay had them build him a pair of boots; if he was going to help them build their business, he needed to be sure of the quality of their products. “It was my name, my face, my rear on the line,” Clay said. The boots were well-worth risking his reputation, so the Millers became boot sellers.
Over the next four years, Clay put 200,000 miles on his truck making the trip from Fort Worth to the family shop in El Paso and back. Clay was the middleman between the bootmakers and the customers, and due to his enthusiasm for the boots, the business exploded. Clay brought more business to the tiny boot shop than they could handle, so Clay hired his own crew.
But that commute proved to be too much. After years of driving across West Texas and being away for weeks at a time, Clay realized it was time to strike out on his own.
photo credit: Wendy Miller
By this point, Clay had “just enough knowledge to be really dangerous.” He bought a small shop in Alvarado, reached out to a skilled bootmaker named Henry whom he had met at a trade show, and Ramblin Trails Custom Boots was born.
Boots started flying out the doors of the little shop in Alvarado. So much so, in fact, that the shop soon proved to be too small, so they moved to a warehouse in Cleburne nicknamed “the Freeze Bowl,” due to a lack of heating. From the Freeze Bowl, Ramblin Trails moved to the Stockyards, and business more than doubled. Now located on Montgomery Street, they still built boots in the back of the shop until May of 2021.
Ramblin Trails produces between 550 and 600 pairs of boots a year, which is far beyond Clay Miller’s wildest dreams. However, he makes sure that the quality of the 600th pair of boots is the exact same as the quality of the first pair. The youngest bootmaker at Ramblin Trails is 59 years old, which speaks to experience it takes to make a quality pair of custom boots. It takes 20 years to learn the craft of making a good boot, and Clay says he learns something new with every pair made.
photo credit: Wendy Miller
What really sets Ramblin Trails apart from the big names in the boot game is that each Ramblin Trails bootmaker knows how to build a boot from start to finish versus a worker who understands only one piece of the process. Ramblin Trails offers three “levels” of boots: stock boots available off the shelf, “semi-custom” which just need to be decorated, and fully custom boots, made to your feet and your taste. No matter which you choose, you can be sure that your Ramblin Trails boots will be made to last and will be as beautiful as they are durable.
If you are looking for the perfect pair of boots, no matter the occasion, Clay and Wendy Miller will take care of you from the moment you walk in the door. Just know that the process of making a pair of custom boots is meticulous. Good boots take time, but I promise, they are worth the wait!
