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Episode 17: Salvatore “Sam Lucchese”
Howdy folks, it’s the fourth week of February 2025 and welcome to This Week in The West.
I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
On this podcast, we share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today.
It was November 1882 when a ship docked into the Port of Galveston, Texas with a pair of Italian brothers among the crowd of new arrivals to the United States. They hadn’t brought much on the long journey from Sicily, but in their heads and hands was the knowledge their father Gaetano had given them about how to craft a well-made shoe.
It being Texas and all, the brother’s shoemaking business quickly turned to Western styles and their family name – Lucchese – became synonymous with cowboy boots. This week, we celebrate the birth of one of those brothers, Salvatore “Sam” Lucchese, born today, February 24, 1868.
By 1883, Sam and his brother Joseph had moved from Galveston to San Antonio and opened a shop near Fort Sam Houston, a United States Cavalry School. The fort, founded in 1873, was experiencing a building boom and officers on the base needed boots, which the Luccheses were happy to supply.
Sam focused his business on retaining quality, combining the techniques taught by his father with the new efficiencies in manufacturing that America offered.
Being in the heart of Texas, the Luccheses also found customers in the working cowboys.
On December 4, 1897, Mr. W. Shock became the earliest entry in Lucchese’s book of boot measurements. Shock’s order? Kangaroo skin boots with a 1.5-inch heel. His total? $9.00.
Demand for custom-made boots grew, as did a high-profile list of Lucchese’s fans.
In 1898, Lucchese had an unusual visitor step through the shop doors. Teddy Roosevelt had just resigned as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy and was putting together a group of men to fight in the Spanish-American War. He needed some boots for the mission. A few months later, Roosevelt was wearing a pair of Luccheses as he charged up San Juan Hill.
With his success, Sam was able to invest in real estate and other businesses around San Antonio. He bought a chain of local theaters and added the title “impresario” to his biography. He hired actors from Mexico to create a hub of Spanish-language entertainment in the city. His Teatro Nacional was considered a center for the city’s entertainment scene during the 1920s.
Sam’s daughter Josephine became a nationally known opera singer, while his son Cosimo focused on the family boot business.
In 1923, Sam suffered a stroke, forcing him to turn over the day-to-day operations of Lucchese to Cosimo. But by that time, the custom boot business was booming. Hollywood had invented a whole new kind of cowboy, and they were looking to be outfitted in the best boots that often reflected their vibrant personalities. This legacy would continue and some of Lucchese’s most famous customers are a who’s who of the midcentury’s great Western performers, including Joel McCrea, Gene Autry, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart.
On January 25, 1929, Sam Lucchese was playing dominoes with his family at home when he passed away. He was 60 years old.
Cosimo eventually passed control of the company to his son Sam Jr., who continued to innovate and build the brand’s customer base. In 1970, the company was sold to The Blue Bell Corporation, the parent company of Wrangler. In 1986, Lucchese moved its headquarters from San Antonio to El Paso.
Today, Lucchese Bootmaker continues to build handmade boots of the highest quality in El Paso using centuries-old techniques and tools similar to those first used by Sam Lucchese 142 years ago. Committed to providing a bespoke experience that focuses on handmade craftsmanship, quality, and style, the Western brand now has over 25 retail locations, from Dallas to Bozeman to Nashville and even right here in Oklahoma City.
Lucchese’s craftsmanship has attracted many customers of note, including larger-than-life Texan and US President Lyndon B. Johnson. Another larger-than-life Texan that wears Lucchese’s? Big Tex. He’s the 55-foot-tall iconic cowboy sculpture that welcomes guests to the Texas State Fair. He wears a pair of Lucchese’s, size 96! His current boot quarters were designed by the winner of “The Big Tex Boot Design Contest”, while the toe, also known as the vamp, was designed by Lucchese’s women’s boot designer. The quarters feature a picturesque Texas sunset with animals and plants native to the Lone Star State growing and roaming about. This upcoming Texas State Fair in 2025 will be your last chance to see these iconic boots, as Big Tex is set to get a new pair of Lucchese’s in 2026!
And with that, we’ve put our boot down on another episode of “This Week in The West.”
Our show is produced by Chase Spivey and written by Mike Koehler.
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We leave you today with the words of President Lyndon Johnson, taken from a letter sent to Sam Lucchese, Jr. in April 1972, thanking him for thinking of him and encouraging the president to ‘get back in the saddle.’ President Johnson wrote: ‘I trust that you know that when I am able to do that, it will be in a pair of Lucchese boots.'”
Much obliged for listening, and remember, come Find Your West here at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
