For The Love of Nocona

By Philip Wysong

Enid Justin and her husband, Julius, slept soundly in an upstairs bedroom in her parent’s quiet home on the morning of January 27, 1918, when, suddenly, the peace was shattered by her mother’s voice calling for them, “Enid, you and Julius come down and see the baby.”[1]

The town of Nocona, Texas, and the surrounding area suffered horribly from an out-break of whooping cough during this cold winter in the northern portion of the Texas Hill Country very near the Red River. Anna Jo, Enid’s two-year-old daughter, succumbed to this affliction that, horrifically, led to pneumonia. The little child suffered mightily. The illness had been affecting her for the better part of a month. Enid’s mother, Annie, convinced her daughter to bring her family to stay with her and Enid’s father at their home so that they could help care for their granddaughter. The young family ventured out into the “bitter cold”, painstakingly walking “the two blocks”, huddled together with a tightly wrapped Anna Jo in their arms.[2] In the following days the baby’s condition worsened, highlighted by fear inducing convulsions. One evening, Annie pushed her daughter to take her husband upstairs to rest. Before climbing the stairs, Enid went to her daughter, who was resting in a little bed, and said to her, “Anna Jo, here’s Mother.” The beautiful toddler “turned over and opened her eyes and smiled”, tragically, for the last time. When Enid responded to her mother’s call from the top of the stairs the next morning, she came down to find that her beloved child had passed away.[3]

The tragic, heartbreaking loss of her beloved daughter at such a young age provides an insightfully clear window into one aspect of the many reasons why Enid poured out her loving and protective, dare I say “motherly”, heart and resources to the people of Nocona in the decades that followed this life altering ordeal. This is especially true for the children in her community. Enid Justin was a compassionate and smart woman who deserves to have her life and accomplishments illuminated.

“Enid Justin was born in Nocona, Texas, on April 8, 1894, the fourth child [three boys and three girls,] of H.J. (Herman Joseph) and Annie (Lovanna) Allen Justin.”[4] Her father ventured to Texas when he was just eighteen years old, by himself, and with little money. Mr. Justin landed in Gainesville, Texas, where he worked as a “cobbler’s apprentice” for the next two years.[5] In 1879, he moved “north to Burlington (today Spanish Fort) on the Red River. Burlington wasn’t much of a town, but it was right on the Chisholm Trail, and Joe Justin had arrived there at the peak of the cattle drive era. With twenty-five cents, some tools, and enough leather to make one pair of boots, Joe opened a one-room shoe repair shop…. He knew that a properly fitting boot was an essential tool for the thousands of cowhands riding the Chisholm Trail.” His business, H.J. Justin Boot Company, began to grow and three short years after he met and married Enid’s mother, Joe Justin relocated his family and business just a few miles to Nocona to take advantage of economic prosperity that the new line of the “Gainesville, Henrietta, & Western Railroad” offered to entrepreneurs.[6]

For the better part of the next four decades, Joe Justin’s strong values and work ethic spurred great prosperity for his family and business.[7] Both became a dependable cornerstone for the people and economic vitality of Nocona, which is why the town endured a crisis when Enid’s older brothers, who had taken over the business after their father’s death, decided to move the business away from Nocona.[8]

It must have been a mixture of shock, disappointment, worry, and sadness for Miss Justin when her brothers announced that they were moving the family boot manufacturing business from her hometown of Nocona to Fort Worth. Enid was now standing at a crossroads. Down one road was the option of joining most of her family and the established, thriving company in Tarrant County. This, however, meant leaving her place of birth and beloved home. This “pioneer” woman courageously took the other, more uncertain road by drawing on the mentorship of her father and the love of the people of her hometown, as motivation to take a risk by staying in Nocona to start her own boot business in the form of the Nocona Boot Company. The wildly successful business and iconic factory that she built turned into a symbol and a source of pride for the residents of Nocona.

The central avenue of scholarship surrounding Miss Enid’s extraordinary life manifests in the novel fact that “a woman starting her own business in… the 1920s, was indeed rare.”[9] More extraordinary, “she was the first female owner of a cowboy boot manufacturing business.”[10] The historians telling her story utilize a linear timeline format while highlighting events and personality traits that explain how and why, as a woman in a patriarchal society and a masculine industry, she built and maintained her profitable company. Those include, working and learning, as an equal to her brothers, in her father’s shop as a child, applying for and receiving, on her own without her husband, a 5,000 dollar bank loan to start her business thereby upholding her father’s ideals of strengthening and giving back to Nocona, and convincing men in retail and ranching that a woman was capable of producing a quality boot.[11] This composition follows those scholars by employing a thematic approach to expand on the training and encouragement she received from her father, the maternal drive to protect and give back to her community, and the town pride the eye-catching Art Deco factory she built generated. Furthermore, it dives deeper into her memoir and historians’ oral history to bring into the light interesting, personable stories that will endear the reader to Miss Enid and her desire to see Nocona thrive.

H.J. Justin’s Influence Saves a Town

Enid Justin’s success as an entrepreneur in the boot manufacturing industry, which provided the means to protect and give to her hometown, came directly from her father. He taught his daughter through instruction and by example, the knowledge and skills necessary to run a boot business, treat people well, and give generously.

The cornerstone value passed down to Enid to earn capital was to allow the quality of the product to make the sale. Larry Roquemore, in an advertisement for Justin Industries, the updated name for her father’s company, describes Mr. Justin’s “craftsmanship [taking] top priority. He cut no corners in boot making; he stitched strength into every boot.”[12] Enid herself stated this value in her memoir by proclaiming, “Boots were an important item to the cowboys. If the boots weren’t made right, the cowboys suffered. Daddy Joe… [, a familial name for her father,] knew what the cowboys needed in the way of boots, and he made them to perfection.”[13] Enid took this lesson to heart and applied it to her own product. Just like her father, she did not “cut corners” in her manufacturing process. The materials her company stitched into every boot “meant the difference between a good boot and an inferior boot. … [For instance, she] always insisted that… [her] boots have solid leather heels as opposed to heels with a filler in them…. [This made them extremely] durable.”[14]

Miss Enid implemented the superior craftsmanship ideal to overcome gender prejudice from male merchants reluctant to stock their store with boots made by a woman. She confidently describes a sales tactic she utilized when pitching her boots to a male shop owner by stating, “I’d go in and tell them I’d like them to look at my boots, and they’d say they weren’t interested. I’d just put two or three up on the counter and told them I’d like to go up the street to get a cup of coffee or something. When I got back they were all looking at them, and I made a sale.”[15]

Daddy Joe instructed with a “hands on approach.”[16] Enid started at her father’s shop at the age of ten by “making up catalogs.” She folded “the order blanks and… [inserted] them into the catalogs with the little tape measure and the price list.”[17] Placing these items in an envelope completed the task. Enid moved on to “stitching boot tops when… [she] was twelve… [by stitching the] tops… [using] an old foot-pedal type Singer sewing machine.”[18]

Daddy Joe’s lessons did not stop at the workshop’s doors. He passed on his belief that people are valuable and, therefore, deserve loving treatment. When his children were growing up, Mr. Justin opened his home up to the community. He “converted a boot shop behind the house into a large family recreation and entertainment center that became known as the Justin Clubhouse. The clubhouse soon became the heart of Nocona’s social life, the scene of dances and parties. On many a night, the sound of music from the Victrola or from live musicians emanated from the Justin Clubhouse, as the parents or children entertained guests.”[19] Enid describes the impact this had on her by stating, “Yes, the Justin home was a home for everyone. … I still consider people the most important part of my life. …I was raised to respect people and to get along with them. Maybe that’s one reason why people enjoyed coming to our home. They were all treated as though they were important.”[20]

Generosity was a quality that H.J. Justin possessed, and Enid emulated. “One of the reasons… [his] company grew so quickly was the ‘self-measuring system’… [developed by Mr. Justin and his wife, Annie. It enabled] cowboys to measure their own feet so they could order boots by mail. … [It has] been used by just about every bootmaker in the world.” He never patented the system even though it would have made him very wealthy. Daddy Joe simply stated, “If it’ll help me, it’ll help somebody else.”[21] Enid followed suite in her business by returning the deed to a man’s family farm he offered her, without being asked, as payment for a large debt he owed her boot company. The man’s son called her a few days later and lamented that his father made a mistake. The land the farm sat on was rich with oil. The young man told her that he would pay the debt himself for the “return of the deed.” Miss Justin agreed and later stated, “I could have been a rich oil woman… but that’s just not the way I’ve done business all these years. I wouldn’t have deprived his family of that property for anything in this world.” [22]   

One of Daddy Joe’s last acts of generosity before he passed away was a “project dear to his heart, and later, his soul. He provided the money to clean up and beautify the Nocona Cemetery, which had suffered from neglect. … On July 14, 1918… he was laid to rest in soil he’d worked so vigorously to restore.”[23] Enid elevated this example of giving to her community when she achieved monetary commercial success and bestowed the fruits of her labor onto Nocona.

Her Love Overflows

Enid Justin’s first steps in giving back to the community that nurtured her was to fill the void left by her brother’s decision to move the family business to Forth Worth. By 1906, her father’s boot company shipped his boots to twenty-two states and two years later earned 12,000 dollars annually. This prompted the Nocona News in 1909 to claim, “No other institution in Nocona is bringing more money to the town than Justin’s boot factory.”[24] The loss of this small town’s largest source of cash flow less than two decades later had the potential to economically and psychologically devastate Nocona, potentially altering it forever. Gallantly, Miss Enid stepped up and filled the void that her brothers created, for she believed that the town and its people were worth protecting.

Enid felt strongly that Nocona is a wonderful place worth fighting to protect. Enid Justin’s great niece, Melanie Howington, grew up in Nocona. She describes how the close-knit community facilitated a safe and nurturing place to grow up in her experience. “We didn’t lock anything,” she professes in an interview I facilitated with her and her cousin, Brad Taylor. Brad recalls, “We [he and his family] were going to Galveston for vacation… [in the early 1970s,] and mom had to call a locksmith because we didn’t even have keys to the doors! Nobody had keys!” Melanie goes on to say her favorite aspect of childhood in this small town “was the freedom just to be a kid. You could run around… [and] at night we’d go down… [to the park] and we’d play and then when it got dark… [we would be called home by horn honks.] The parents came up with horn honks and each house had their own… honk. … And then everyone [would] be quiet when [the] horns started honking and that was the parents’ way of saying, ‘Get home!”[25] It is easy to see why Miss Enid has such great affection for this wonderful city.  

The people of this special town were loved by Miss Enid. She gave freely to many people and organizations in the community in an effort to bring joy to people. For instance, Brad describes an incident where his great aunt Enid bought everyone in town a gift:

I remember one year there were… [these] little figurines that spun around and played a tune [that] she saw in some book, … [and] they were expensive. she said [to my dad] “What do you think about these for gifts?” … Dad said, “Oh, that'd be cute.”  You know, dad had no idea, didn’t care anything about it and then like a month later a truck shows up at the boot company and they come to dad and say, “What do we do with this?” And dad said, “What is it?” [It turns out that] She ordered one for everybody in town. It was like 3,500 of these and it took like two or three people, every single day… [to come pick them up].[26]

Brad’s father, who was the General Manager at the Nocona Boot Company at the time, recounted to Brad that to fairly hand the figurines out to everyone in town, people “would come in… [and] you’d write their name down… [to make sure that no one was] given two or three.” His father added that this process was a “nightmare, because they were… [disrupting business by] coming into the office to get them.”

Miss Justin bestowed the majority of her generosity on the children of her hometown. This was no more evident than at Halloween. Enid was given the nickname “Crackerjack Lady” because, as Dale Terry claims, “she ordered up to five hundred boxes of Crackerjacks every Halloween, just for the kids. Some of the youngsters had no idea who she was except she was the one who always had a storehouse full of Crackerjacks.”[27] Mr. Taylor excitedly explains how he remembers one Halloween “going over… [to her house toward the end of her life] and helping and she was sitting in her wheelchair at the door… [handing out the Crackerjacks to the children who came trick or treating] and there was just cars lined down the street in both directions.”

She also put a great deal of money into improving the city park in the form of new playground equipment because, as she put it, “I loved the children of this town… [and] playground equipment is important to children.”[28] Miss Justin personally picked out many of the pieces of equipment that were placed at the park, but her great nephew Brad was given that task as well by Enid. He explains:

I remember this was before I was even in school, maybe like, well, maybe like four or five years old. I would sit in her office, and she would have playground books, and I would flip through there, and she’d say, find something. You know, I’m like five years old. I find a big playground equipment piece. So, I would find something that looked good, really looked really neat and then she would call Bill Yeargin… [the City Manager,] and say, “this is the piece I want.”[29]

Mrs. Howington believes her fondness for the little ones in her community stemmed from the death of her daughter and being unable to conceive any more children in the subsequent years. “She would love to go sit and watch kids at the park because she lost her child.”[30] Even though this love sprang from sadness, these acts of affection brought her joy. Her niece, Marcia Taylor, commented in an interview, profoundly explaining, “Kids would come running up and hug her on the street, and it just thrilled her to death.”[31]

Miss Justin’s heart truly overflowed for this special place in Montague County. This manifested into an iconic symbol of strength and prosperity for its residents when Miss Enid built her new factory in 1948.

Nocona Boot Day

The lessons in boot making and care for her neighbors that Enid learned from her father and put into marvelous action culminated in the crown jewel of Nocona in the beautiful and awe-inspiring new manufacturing facility that she built a little over twenty years after she founded her company. When Miss Justin first formed the Nocona Boot Company, she “rented the Atkins building on the west side of Clay Street.”[32] It contained “1,000 square feet” of available workspace.[33] Despite expanding the plant on multiple occasions, Enid came to the realization, in 1947, that the company must find a new home. She was having to decline new business, despite “producing 180 boots per day”, and the shop had become crowded and dangerous. Luckily for the people in town, she decided to build a brand-new facility “on a small hill just east of town on the north side of US Highway 82.” Acting as a herald, the owner of the property told her, “Enid, I’ll sell it to you but no one else. I know you’ll build something the town will be proud of.”

The residents of Nocona were, indeed, extremely proud of the “Art Deco styling and cream-colored brick” factory “that crowned the hilltop.” It was truly “a stunning sight to behold.” The opening ceremony for this work of art was a celebration for the ages and a truly happy time for Enid. She made sure that it was a salute to her hometown.[34]

Several days before Nocona Boot Company’s new facility was to host its opening ceremony, the Nocona News ran a special edition of the paper on Friday June 4, 1948. It was filled with jovial congratulatory letters and advertisements to Miss Justin from people and businesses around the area. On the front page situated in the upper left corner; a large advertisement featured a picture of the finished building with an itinerary for the festivities the following Wednesday. It read: “Opening Party[;] New Building of Nocona Boot Company[;] Wednesday, June 9[;] Nocona, Texas[;] Factory Open for Inspection 4 to 10 P.M.[;] Broadcasts – KFDX-990 (Wichita Falls) 8 P.M.[;] WBAP-820 (Fort Worth) 10:30 P.M.”  Just below, an article declared, “’Nocona Boot Day’ Proclaimed by Mayor.” Mark Thrasher’s proclamation joyously stated:

Realizing the importance in the industrial development of Nocona[;] the opening of this modern factory building;… and on account of the many visitors who will be here on that day, I do therefore, as Mayor of Nocona, hereby proclaim June 9, 1948, as “Nocona Boot Day” in the city of Nocona.

An article on the right side of the front page declared the ceremony “is expected to be a gala day here and one which marks an important mile-stone in the history of Nocona. … [There are] letters and telegrams… pouring in to the company from out-of-town guests who expect to be here for the opening.”[35]

Miss Enid’s heart poured out on that celebratory day. She graciously greeted all who crossed the threshold of her new factory. “Between seven and eight thousand people… [including] proud townspeople thronged through the elaborate plant.”[36] Employee Luciel Leonard recounted the festivities fondly for Carol Lipscomb when she pronounced:

It was “Grand”!... We had opening ceremonies in the daytime… then that night… they set up a stage back in the factory, and people just milled around or sat and watched the program. And I’ll say this for Miss Enid—she never ran out of refreshments for anything she did! She took care of it in style. And she had molds of cowboy boots of ice cream, and she had [boot-shaped] cookies made.[37]

The Nocona News added, “Music for the… [evening] program… was rendered by the Flying X Ranch Boys, the Bootman’s Quartette, and the Nocona Boot Company Employee Chorus.”[38] Fun was surely had by all in attendance.

The high-water mark that “Nocona Boot Day” represented truly captures and illuminates in one monumental event the powerful engine in Miss Enid’s soul that drove her well-earned commercial success that was fueled by a deep desire to honor her father and safeguard, just as she so desperately wanted to do for her young daughter, that tightknit village so dear to her heart nestled in the rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country.

Enid Justin’s generous actions and the protective fight that she displayed during her monumental lifetime need to be remembered and emulated so that small towns everywhere have a chance to thrive, just like her beloved home of Nocona, Texas.

Miss Enid’s niece, Mrs. Taylor, proudly proclaims to Carol Lipscomb, “I want people to remember her—as the lady in Nocona who loved the kids and, who, fortunately, was able to do for them.”[39]

[1] Terry, Dale. Miss Enid: The Texas Lady Bootmaker. Austin, Texas: Nortex Press, 1985. 23.

[2] Terry. 22.

[3] Terry. 23.

[4] McLeroy, Sherrie. Red River Women. Plano, Texas: Republic of Texas Press, 1996. 217.

[5] Farman, Irvin. Standard of the West: The Justin Story. Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University Press, 1996. 

[6] McLeroy. 218

[7] McLeroy. 219

[8] McLeroy. 234.

[9] Lipscomb, Carol A. The Lady Makes Boots: Enid Justin and the Nocona Boot Company. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2021. 47.

[10] Gillette, Shannon. Images of America: Nocona. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2011. 93.

[11] Lipscomb. 32, 46, 50.

[12] Roquemore, Larry. 100 Year History of Justin Boot Company. Fort Worth, Texas: Daily Advertising, Inc. Public Relations, 1978. Photocopy from Enid Justin Collection, Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas, 7.

[13] Terry, 2.

[14] Terry, 37-38.

[15] Frink, Cheryl Coggins. 1986, “Breaking Step with Tradition.” Austin American-Statesman, March 2, 1986. Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum.

[16]Born into boots: An interview with Enid Justin, Floyd Jenkins, March 2014. Humanities Texas, www.humanitiestexas.org.

[17] Terry, 11.

[18] Terry, 11.

[19] Farman, 20.

[20] Terry, 16.

[21] Terry, 7.

[22] Terry, 58.

[23] Roquemore, 15.

[24] Farman, 22-24.

[25] Melanie Howington and Brad Taylor, Interview by Philip Wysong, November 8, 2024. Audio Recoding.

[26] Wysong Interview (audio recording).

[27] Terry, 72.

[28] Terry, 72.

[29] Wysong Interview (audio recording)

[30] Wysong Interview (audio recording)

[31] Marcia Taylor, interview by Carol Lipscomb, May 31, 1995, transcript, Oral History Collection, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, Enid Justin Collection, Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas, 22.

[32] Lipscomb, 50.

[33] McLeRoy, 225.

[34] Lipscomb, 93-94, 97, 205, 207.

[35] Nocona News, June 4, 1948. NewspaperArchive.

[36] Nocona News, June 11, 1948. NewspaperArchive.

[37] Luciel Leonard, interview by Carol Lipscomb, August 3, 1995, transcript, Oral History Collection, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, Enid Justin Collection, Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum, Nocona, Texas.

[38] Nocona News, June 11, 1948. NewspaperArchive.

[39] Taylor Interview, 22.