Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine, Your destination for travel resources and entertainment.

Photography by Tadd Myers

Words by Jennifer Nalewicki 

We’ve seen the future and it works . . . in small shops with sawdust-covered floors free of conveyer belts and robots. There, craftsmen make goods with their hands, carving slabs of mesquite into guitars and stitching decorative patterns onto cowboy boots. Tadd Myers, a Dallas photographer, crisscrossed the United States over the last two years to capture these artisans at work. He saw cowhides become baseball gloves in Texas and liquid metal form into vases and jewelry in Vermont. He shot more than 10,000 photographs, a massive project he plans to turn into a book. ¶  In the following pages, we will introduce you to Myers’ work-in-progress and to the people he’s met so far. (To see even more of his photographs, check out americancraftsmanproject.com.) He won’t consider setting the project aside. “What started as personal curiosity soon grew into something that feels much more important,” Myers says. “This is an opportunity to preserve a vital aspect of American culture and to tell the story of some truly remarkable people.”

Danner Footwear

Portland, Oregon

It’s not uncommon for customers to boast that they’ve been wearing the same pair of Danner footwear for 20 years. They aren’t pulling your leg; the company’s sole aim is to make boots that simply last that long. Which is why they’re so popular with U.S. soldiers, police officers, and anyone else who plans on giving their boots a good workout. Before workers even begin to assemble a pair, they test the quality of each piece of leather. Pieces that lack flexibility, strength, and durability get the boot. Choice hides move on to the production floor for cutting, molding, and stitching, all of which is done by hand. The company also shows serious staying power: It began manufacturing boots in 1932. 

Nokona Athletic Goods

Nocona, Texas

Even an inferno couldn’t keep this company from producing handmade baseball gloves. A devastating fire in 2006 wiped out the Nokona Athletic Goods’ factory, but workers salvaged what little they could, including the dies used to cut patterns from cowhide, buffalo, and kangaroo leather. ‘We basically had to dig the dies out of the ashes,’ says Nellann McBroom of Nokona. The family-owned company kept all the employees on the payroll while moving into a new building. A few weeks later, everyone returned to cutting, stamping, embroidering, and sewing each glove by hand, just like the last 80 years. Now Nokona makes about 50,000 gloves a year. No matter what. 

Danforth Pewter

Middlebury, Vermont

This 35-year-old company dates back to before the Revolutionary War. In the mid-1700s, Thomas Danforth II began casting molten pewter—a metal made mostly of tin—into teapots, beer mugs, and water basins. He passed down his skills through five generations. Though descendent Fred Cast Danforth and his wife, Judi Whipple, founded Danforth Pewter only in 1975, they’re making up for lost time. The company makes its original-design oil lamps, dinnerware, and jewelry just like Thomas Danforth II once did.

ref=“http://www.pawless.com”>Pawless Guitars

Gainesville, Texas

Vince Pawless sounds like the cobbler from the proverb: He’s so busy building guitars that he doesn’t have time to make one for himself. Though he takes on only one new project a month, backlogs mount at a one-man shop that produces custom-made goods from scratch. Pawless builds each guitar out of mesquite and other woods from fallen trees in South Texas. ‘Sometimes customers supply me with wood from trees on their property,’ he says as he chisels away at a piece of spruce, paper-thin wood curls falling to the floor like confetti. He currently has 30 projects in various states of completion. A long-time musician, Pawless has always loved guitars. So when he was laid off from a corporate job in 2002, he knew he’d turn his guitar-making hobby into a full-time job. Since then, he has built close to 100 guitars, saying his process mirrors that used by luthiers in the 1930s. ‘I can remember every guitar that I’ve ever built,’ he says. Maybe one day that number will include one he can call his own. 

Maple Landmark Woodcraft

Middlebury, Vermont

This 30-something company never grew up. Maple Landmark Woodcraft creates thousands of wooden jigsaw puzzles and rocking horses each year. Its best seller: alphabet train blocks. ‘We’ve sold more than 6 million of them,’ owner Mike Rainville says. Not much has changed over the years, except that workers use a computer-guided router to carve shapes from local maple wood. Even Rainville hasn’t grown up: He founded the company at age 15. 

Cheaney’s Custom Saddles

Gainesville, Texas

Bruce Cheaney finds metal for his hand-made spurs in unusual places. The 58-year-old saddle and spur maker uses salvaged axles from Model T Fords; the high carbon content helps them retain their shape, even when abused by the most rugged of cowboys. ‘I usually find the axels on eBay,’ Cheaney says. ‘If you keep an eye out, you’ll find them.’ He learned how to make high-quality spurs—and saddles and bits and belts—working as a 12-year-old in his father’s workshop after school. And for $2,500 a pop, his spurs are built to last.

Trail Town Boots

Saint Jo, Texas

Before Carl Chappell makes a pair of boots, he takes a hands-on approach with his customers. ‘I’ll use a measuring tape, but I also feel their feet to see how much meat is on them, their firmness,’ he says. Making one pair takes about 40 hours. Chappell learned the craft from his father in 1982. Every step of the process, from building the lass—or wooden boot form­—to sewing the decorative stitching on the boot’s shaft, follows the pattern he mastered long ago. ‘Ninety percent of what I do,’ he says, ‘is just like my father.’