Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1895-01-30
ThE NAME MoccAslN-
I'y No Means Handsome. but Esteemed hv
 Lambsranrn Last and West.

Iiy No Means Handsome. but Esteemed b,
 Lunbersnen Last and West.
 Everybody who has been in Maine
 during tho winter among the lumber.
 men and hackwoods farmers knows
 the blown up looking muddy yellow
 boots and shoes these useful and pie. turesque citizens wear, said a vet eran leather dealer in the swamp.
 They call 'em moccasins. The first pair was made by 8 shoemaker in Bangor, and their fame long ago spread to the west. The shoe faeto. Iies of Bangor now turn out annually something like l00,0OO pairs of moe easin boots and one-quarter as many shoes, and there are factories out in Minnesota and Wisconsin that make almost ss many.
 A person on first seeing this yell low and boggy footwear would sup pose that 1t was made from some strange leather, but it isn't The material s just common leather, but leather tanned in 8 way that is known to only few. All we know is that salt, alum and some kind of an out of the way oi are the principal agen- cies that give the leather its peculiar color @ fedbihty. This leather had been made years and years be- fore any oge thought of using 1t for boots or shoes. The only use to which 1t was put up to 1851 was to make lacings for mill belts. It was made only at Pawtucket. One day a man named Baldwin. who was a shoe maker in Bangor, made up his mind that the leather was just the thing for winter moccasins, and he made a tew airs. They were tried by Ium- bern a, and Baldwin proved to be right Nothing had ever been offer. ed to the Maine lnmbermen that fill ed the lill like Baldwin's yellow moccasins, and in less than a year a big factory for turning out these queer boots and shoes was started in Bangor. Other factories sprang up in Maine. and the tanning of the belt lace leather made those who knew the secret of it rich in a short time and compelled the increasing of tanning capacity tenfOld
 "Until 1871 the boots and shoes were made just as Baldwin made hts first pair % years before, Then ma chimes forcutting and fashioning the moccasins came into use and revoIu- tioniaed the business In 1855. the fame of the Maine nioccasin having reached the far western lumber re gions a Bangor firm received an or der for pair from some ono in Du- hnque The oTyler was filled. and this led t0 other orders, until, when the war broke out, the eastern fac tories were shipping thousands of pairs of Maine mOccasins ta the west. The war almost killed the business. It began to revive soon after the war, and then rival factories spr1ng up in the west. and now the great demands for this Maine footgear from the lumber regions of the northwest are now almost entirely filed by faeto- tories at St. Paul, Racine, Minneapo- Us and other points.
 The value of the moccasin lies al. most entirely in the peculiar way in which the leather is tanned, The renders the leather absolute ly waterproof and a perfect nonoon. duetor of heat and cold The color of the poecasin is a golden yellow, and fashion has made them in the shape of shoes as popular in fhe town these days, especially in the as they are in the wilder ness where the snow is thigh deep. New York Sun.