50
But first things first: it’s a long
way from the Grand Canyon to
Weatherford, Texas.
Back in Arizona, Rohwedder
learned to shoe horses and worked
in the blacksmith shop. He met his
wife of 48 years, Carol, during that
period. She’d come to Arizona from
Fort Worth on vacation to see the
wondrous mile-deep canyon that
became an official national monu-
ment in 1908 and a national park
in 1919. But his next stop was the
Rocky Mountains, not Texas.
“I had my own shoeing business,”
he recalled. “When I quit there I
gathered up my stuff and went to
Colorado and started shoeing
there. But I guess I was a little naive
— you know, when it comes winter
there and the snow flies, there’s not
much shoeing.” But he wanted to
stay there and wanted to marry Carol,
so he shoed horses when he could
and operated heavy equipment.
They returned to Arizona so
he could apply his farrier skills in
Phoenix working with a friend and
the friend’s father. “But I didn’t like
Phoenix,” Rohwedder said, “because
it was too hot down there! But I did
go. I wanted to get back to working
full-time with livestock, horses. But it
didn’t work out. I got there and they
had a gasoline shortage; you couldn’t
hardly get enough gas to last you all
day; you’d wait in line for 30 minutes
just to get a few gallons of gas.”
He went back to heavy equipment
for about a year before the outfit
he worked for shut down. Out of
work for several months, the couple
decided to move to Texas. Beginning
in 1980, for three and a half years he
worked on a ranch near Bowie. Next
he took a job as ranch foreman on
a spread near Lometa. In 1985, the
Rohwedders came to Parker County,
where Carol’s father had a cousin,
postmaster in Weatherford. This rela-
tion’s son had a heavy equipment
company. Keith hired on.
“The second week I was here I
swore I was going to leave … well,
that was 1985, and here I am,”
Rohwedder said, laughing. “That’s
how I got back into it [heavy equip-
ment],” he said. “You know, I had
a child and family to provide for, so
that’s what I did.” Thirty-three years
later he’s still operating heavy equipment — but evenings and weekends are
for boots.
He crafted his first pair of boots in 2005, using his wife as his “guinea pig.”
It took him three tries, but the result was a decent pair of boots, solid black
kangaroo boots that Carol still wears to this day. Not too bad a start for a guy
armed with only a book on basic bootmaking and a strong desire to create.
Rohwedder turned out some award-winning boots early on.
“I saw an ad in a trade magazine that bootmakers get, and there was a
bootmaking contest at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri,” Rohwedder
remembered. “So I thought, ‘with a $50 entry fee, what can I lose?’ It was
the Salute to the Great American Cowboy, Best of American Bootmakers
Competition. I entered as a novice in 2006 and I won in that category.” He
beat out nine other novice bootmakers. The following year, 2007, he returned
to Silver Dollar City for the competition and his boots won 1st place in the
Artistry Stage Boot Category. In that instance, he stood out in a field of 50
bootmakers.
With the 2006 win came an opportunity to step his bootmaking game up a
notch or two. Part of the prize was participation in an intense two-week train-