For teenagers in the 1970s — "the hippie days," as Robert Morgan likes to call them — sandals were a hot fashion item.
Morgan wanted a pair for himself, so he paid a visit to the Village Cobbler in Foothill Village.
"That's what the cobbler did over there, he made custom-made sandals," Morgan said. "I went over there to get a pair of custom-made sandals for me. The guy ended up saying, 'I can make you some sandals if you help me shine some shoes."'
Morgan agreed, and he took his first step — pun intended — toward his life's work.
But stories like Morgan's are growing rare in Utah and nationwide. As more Americans plant their feet in throwaway shoes and athletic footwear, the neighborhood shoe repair shop is striving to adapt and avoid becoming a relic from the past.
Morgan, 55, has seen the number of shoe repair shops in the Salt Lake Valley dwindle in the past 35-plus years to the point that the Yellow Pages now list about a dozen.
Morgan used to have two shops, including his current location at 1455 S. 2300 East and one near the Fashion Place mall in Murray. He tried to sell the latter a few years ago, but after a year with no takers, he closed it.
"It's amazing how many shoe repairmen have ended up dying or retiring or just getting out of the business, and nobody is there to replace them," Morgan said.
"I think I'm the closest shoe repair to downtown. ... It doesn't make me happy. It's not like I'm all of a sudden getting all of this business. It kind of hurts the shoe repair industry overall."
New blood
But all hope is not lost. Consider Bill Wheeler in Waldoboro, Maine. He entered the business four months ago at age 56, pumping new life into a collection of machines and hand tools that he purchased through eBay from a defunct repair shop.
The opening of Coastal Cobbler sandwiched between an appliance business and a cellular phone office, means Waldoboro's 5,000 residents no longer have to travel 35 miles to Brunswick or 50 miles to Lewiston for shoe repairs.
It also bucks a decadeslong decline in the number of repair shops. The number of cobblers has dropped from roughly 100,000 during the Great Depression to about 7,000 today, according to the Shoe Service Institute of America.
And the trend continues.
For every repair shop that opens, two or three are closing their doors, but the rate of attrition appears to be slowing, said Jim McFarland, who serves on the board of SSIA, an industry trade group staffed by volunteers.
"By 2020, unless we see a radical change, there will be around 5,000 or 6,000 shops," said McFarland, who operates a shop in Lakeland, Fla.
Roots of the problem
The cause of the decline is plain to see.
Last year's average retail price of a dress shoe — men's, women's and children's — was $32.59, according to the NPD Group Inc., a market research company in Port Washington, N.Y. Dress casual shoes were even cheaper, averaging $30.46 a pair.
That's considerably less than the $40 to $45 that most shops charge to put on a set of half soles and heels.
Also, dressier shoes make up a dwindling percentage of footwear sales. Last year, dress and dress casual shoe sales were $10.7 billion, roughly half of what Americans paid for sneakers and other athletic footwear.
Many of today's consumers have no familiarity with repair shops, and some are unaware that old shoes can be made as good as new, McFarland said. He cited estimates that only 10 percent of Americans have their shoes repaired.
Michael Gustafson, owner of Michael's Expert Shoe & Boot Repair, 3580 S. Redwood Road in West Valley City, said he thinks the public's lack of knowledge about shoe repair is the primary problem facing cobblers.
"The main reason for the decline, I think, has more to do with the lack of education of the fact that there are shoe repairers," he said. "Before, when people were trying to save money, they'd get their shoes fixed. With the traditional styles of shoes, that was more practical.
"A lot of people are under the impression that newer shoes are not repairable, when they really are. Sometimes it's not cost-effective, but more times than not it really is."
A family affair
Gustafson, 43, used to go to his grandfather's shoe repair shop and watch him work.
"He retired when he was 86 — that would have been around '87 or '88," Gustafson said.
His grandfather hired Gustafson full time in about 1980, when he decided Gustafson was serious enough about the trade to learn its secrets. Gustafson has owned the shop for about 16 years, and he also laments the demise of other local repair shops.
"It's not necessarily an easy living," he said. "There are things you can do that are easier that will maybe bring you more money for your effort. ... But for me, (I like) handcrafting. If I wasn't doing this, I enjoy mechanics and sheet-metal bending and creating. It's just sort of a natural gravitation for me.
"It's the fact that it was in the family already, and it kind of coincided with some of the desires I already had."
Shoe repair traditionally has been a family business, in many cases begun by immigrants.
The same has been true in Morgan's family. His son, Troy, started coming to the shoe repair shop as a child and liked it, so he now works with his father at Village Cobbler.
"At the time (Morgan started), we were probably doing 100 pairs of shoes a day, shining and repair," Morgan said.
"We do 50 to 70 pairs of shoes a day now. I've raised seven kids doing it. I think this shop up here is established long enough that it has stayed pretty constant throughout."
Gustafson isn't sure his business will remain in the family when his time of stitching and crafting is done.
"So far, none of my girls is interested in it. They're interested in other things," he said. "We'll see what happens."
Nationwide these days, fewer sons are following in their fathers' footsteps. Many of those who remain on the job are adapting.
Change to survive
Robert DiRinaldo, who just turned 75 and is hailed as a legend in the industry, helped pioneer techniques for repairing shoes with plastic molded bottoms that gained popularity two decades ago.
These days, DiRinaldo keeps busy repairing shoes at DiRinaldo's Shoe Service in Trafford, Pa., and traveling the country to share his techniques with other cobblers at seminars on "how to repair the unrepairable."
Even though many of today's shoes are bonded rather than stitched, almost all can be repaired. "If the shoe repairman is up to date on his bonding techniques, he can fix it," McFarland said.
"If the shoe fits, repair it," is the motto of his trade group, which trumpets the environmental benefit of reuse of resources.
Simple economics, however, dictate that only a limited segment of the shoe market is a candidate for repair. "Chances are, any shoe you buy for under a hundred bucks isn't going to be worth repairing unless you're in love with the shoe," McFarland said.
In Wheeler's shop, the rates for full soles and heels are $70, half soles and heels $45, heels $21 and women's high heel lifts $12. So far, he said, the customer response has been enough to keep him busy.
Gustafson said he thinks most Salt Lake cobblers also will have enough customers to keep going.
"The need will always be there, and it's always been there," he said, adding that his clients cover a broad demographic, including younger immigrants.
"When they come over from their native countries, a lot of them were brought up in an environment where you got your shoes fixed," Gustafson said.
And that is why he has hope for the future.
"In this valley, you'll see a decline in shops, but I think there will be plenty of business," he said. "In fact, right now, I'm out quite a ways. My goal is to start doing more educational advertising ... on my location and the fact that the service is available. That will keep me in business forever."
Morgan may not keep going forever, but he and his son have no plans to quit, either.
"I like working with my hands," he said. "I would probably have to guess that I'm probably as good a shoe repair guy as there is in the country. I do a good job. We're a service- and quality-oriented type of business, and we pride ourselves in doing good work, and that's what keeps them coming back."
And if nothing else, Morgan discovered back in the "hippie days" that knowing how to work with shoes can help keep your own feet shod.
"I never did get my custom-made sandals," he laughed. "I ended up making my own."
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