Oklahoma bootmaker helps solve worldwide shortage of wooden pegs used for traditional cowboy boots

GUTHRIE, Okla. (KFOR) - A bootmaker in Oklahoma helped save a tradition that nearly ended during the pandemic.

Companies that sell and make wooden pegs used to make traditional cowboy boots, decided to stop the product. So, one Guthrie business owner helped solve the worldwide shortage.  

The small wooden pegs might not seem significant to you, but in the boot making industry, it’s playing a big role in keeping history alive. 

“Wooden pegs really are crucial to the history and the making of cowboy boots. I was already starting to think, what am I going to do?... That history goes back to around 1880,” said Lisa Sorrell, custom boot maker in Guthrie.  

Boot maker, Lisa Sorrell said during the COVID pandemic, the three companies that sell wooden pegs for boot making decided to stop making the product. 

“Traditionally cowboy boot soles are pegged in the arch area and in the heel area and the reason that it is really important for them to be pegged in the arch area is because that adds strength to the sole in that area. The shank area is not as strong if it's stitched,” said Sorrell.  

Sorrell said she begged the companies to start selling them again but got nowhere.  

So, she made a call to her bootmaker friend in Germany looking for help.  

“I went and begged, and I enlisted a shoemaker friend of mine in Germany to help me beg and he enlisted the German Shoemakers Guild and we begged and one of them came back online,” said Sorrell.  

Sorrell helped solve the worldwide shortage of wooden pegs which is crucial to her business and many others that make traditional cowboy boots. 

“The factories were absolutely desperate. I’ve been contacted by factories that were at a standstill because they had run out of pegs and had no place to get pegs. It was dire for them,” said Sorrell.  

While Sorrell makes the craft look easy, it takes years of practice. 

Sorrell’s over 30-year tradition of making boots with wooden pegs is now back on track so she can continue to fulfill her customers’ orders. 

“Certainly, when I’m looking around at antique stores and thrift stores for old boots, and what not, you I check to see if they have pegs in them,” said Flora Knight. 

Flora Knight got her first pair of wooden pegged boots from Sorrell and said it’s important to her because she wants to help keep the tradition alive. 

“The importance of them is to link us to this knowledge that we have of the craft from times gone by. I guess there was a little whisper that maybe the pegs wouldn’t be able to be reproduced anymore and so that feels significant in the sense that if that goes away, that’s like a little link to the old world of craft that we’ve been trying to keep present,” said Flora Knight.  

Sorrell ordered one thousand pounds of wooden pegs, so she will be set for a while. 

"Obviously some changes happen, but you still want that foundation of tradition and history, and wood pegs are a big part of that, and we needed it. Otherwise, it was going to change the whole history of cowboy boot making,” said Sorrell. 

Sorrell is also selling some of her supplies to other companies who also need them.