Big Boots Highlight City’s Western Heritage
By Ric Cavazos
The 30 handcrafted boots standing nearly six feet tall on Mercedes Street corners and roadways represent the city’s western heritage and its connection to early Rio Grande Valley history.
The Mid-Valley city was founded in the early 1900s by a land company. The American Rio Grande Land & Irrigation Company in setting up agricultural operations established some of the first irrigation systems to move water from the river to new farm fields. About the three decades later, the first of the ag shows kicked off that would make Mercedes the eventual home of the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show.
In 1929, Mexican bootmaker Zeferino Rios set up his first shop in Mercedes and with it brought the tradition of handmade boot making to the city. Today, a company bearing his name, Rios of Mercedes Boot Company, makes five lines of boots in the city and they are sold to retailers around the country – and the world. This rich background of agricultural history and boot-making heritage were the inspirations in 2013 when the big boots of Mercedes started going up on the city’s streets and busy intersections.
Hernan Gonzalez, who was then the executive director of the Mercedes Economic Development Corporation, originated the idea in 2013. The first batch of boots went up that year. New ones have been added over the years, including one in 2014 for the newly named University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. All of the boots bear the logos and colors of universities in Texas, the United States, and Mexico.
“The boot is very symbolic of the heritage of the whole area and it has become the iconic symbol of Mercedes,” said City Commissioner Ruben Saldana, who is also the district administrator for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Center in Weslaco. “It’s very fitting to have the boots represent our city.”
Enduring Tradition
The Mercedes EDC has a map on its website that shows where the big boots can be found in the city.
They are concentrated in the downtown area. The big boots of Texas A&M University and the University of Texas sit across from each other in caddy-corner style on the intersection of Texas Avenue and 2nd Street. The UTRGV boot is found on the corner of Ohio and 4th streets. Out a bit from downtown is the Harvard University boot on the corner of Vermont Avenue and the Expressway 83 access road.
The alumni of universities that have big boots representation can be seen taking selfies and group photos with the colors and logos of their colleges as depicted on the boots. Gonzalez, in getting the boots put up, wanted the displays on street corners to be sources of pride by graduates of the colleges while hopefully inspiring youngsters to attend those schools in their futures.
It’s amidst the big boots where Camargo’s Western Boots still operates today on west 2nd Street with a master of handmade boot-making at the helm.
“I’m old school,” Henry Camargo said in a Valley Business Report story. “I do everything by hand.”
He learned the craft decades ago from the Rios family at the original Rios of Mercedes facility just west of downtown. In 2023, Texas Monthly asked, “Is Henry Camargo the last of the great Texas bootmakers?’
He may be, but boot-making will continue in Mercedes as it has for decades, with the big boots on street corners as a fitting tribute to that heritage.
“It just puts a smile on your face,” Commissioner Saldana said of the connection of Mercedes to its boot-making history. “Boots and our heritage to agriculture are well-engraved into our community.”
