Journey In God's Amazing Grace: Happy 50th to us! (part 1)

Tuesday was our 50th month-versary, so we planned a day to celebrate.

We headed into San Antonio. We had booked a tour of the SAS Shoe Factory in the morning. I have been wearing SAS shoes for many, many years -- I have narrow feet and high arches, and it is refreshing to be able to get shoes that actually fit my foot! Soon after Carl and I got married, I took him into an SAS shoe store and he got his first pair of SAS shoes. They are about three times the cost of the Nike or Reebok or other type of athletic shoe that he had been purchasing -- but he had been having to replace the previous types of shoes about once a year (he is hard on shoes). He still has that first pair of SAS casual shoes, and he has a pair of dressier shoes too. I have sandals, flat slip-ons, and casual/athletic shoes from SAS. Miss Kitty is the only occupant of the rig who isn't outfitted in SAS shoes!

Founders of San Antonio Shoemakers (SAS)

In the '70s, two men had a dream of making the most comfortable shoes in the world.

Terry Armstrong and Lew Hayden had a vision of how soft and comfortable genuine leather shoes should be made.

They would use the finest leather and quality materials; each pair crafted by hand with close attention to detail.

With passion, determination and the support of their families, the two visionaries pooled their resources to start their first factory in a corner of an old, unused aircraft hangar on the South Side of San Antonio. In 1976, San Antonio Shoemakers was born.

They were confident their shoes would sell themselves once tried on, and they were right. The SAS reputation grew by word of mouth and became a name people could trust for comfortable, quality footwear.

Our goal is to keep Terry and Lew's dream alive.

Today, San Antonio Shoemakers continues to be a family-owned business. WE take pride in the legacy handed down to us by Terry and Lew.

At San Antonio Shoemakers, we take extra steps, so you can too. Thank you!

This is one of the styles of SAS Shoes that I have multiple pairs of -- the Duo. It's 1,000,000th pair was produced in 1995. There was a wall with many bronzed styles recognized for having sold 1 million+ pairs of shoes!

We could not take pictures of the factory operations, but, when we first entered the first factory building...

... there was a display of these tiny cunning SAS baby shoes. Our tour guide, Claudia, told us that these are each hand made, many to special order, by a lady over in the General Store building.

Our sweet tour guide, Claudia, with us, at the end of the tour. She gave us such a great tour!

Things we learned on the tour (this are some of the things I remember, and the way that I remember them, but they may not be completely correct!):

The shoes are hand made -- and go through 88 hands on their process of production! (A marketing video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLIb5jvmbDE)
The leather comes into the factory already dyed and ready to cut. The first production line person we saw was using dies that she positioned on the leather - the die was sharp on both sides so she could position it to take advantage of getting the most out of the raw materials. The leather for 9 pairs of shoes will be cut from a single piece of leather. I think there are three pieces cut for many of the shoes -- the heel cap, the vamp (I think this is the largest part), and then maybe the tongue? They ensure that both shoes in a pair of shoes has leather from the same original piece of leather.
There is a machine that makes the holes where stitching will be required.
The shoes are hand-stitched.
The leather wraps around the foot under the footbed of the shoe.
There are two new shoe styles that have been contracted to be produced by SAS for the US military: the Mission and the Pursuit.
The finished products go through two different quality checks. If anything is found not to standard, they are marked with a yellow tag and sent to be sold as seconds in the General Store. Claudia picked one of the shoes off the rack that had a yellow tag on it -- a note on the tag indicated an imperfection on the upper part of the shoe -- there was a minuscule discoloration that I probably would not have even been able to see!

When our tour ended (about 45 minutes), we went back into the General Store to look around.

Inside the General Store

Lasts -- one of SAS's unique qualities is that their lasts are made in the US to exacting standards. When you find the size of SAS shoe that fits you, the next pair in that size will also fit you, because it will be made on a last with the exact same characteristics.

In the seconds area -- if I only had room in my closet!

At all SAS shoe stores, they still measure the size of your foot -- even if you "know" your foot size, they will gladly measure it to ensure that your foot has not changed size since it was last checked (things change as we celebrate more birthdays, you know!).