The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-04-07
Thousands Of Pairs Are Used
Annually by Workmen.
REGARDED AS LIFE SAVERS
Needed IN Breweries. Tanneries, Poultry
Stores and Observation-Disclosures
Uppers the Kind in Great
est Demand.

every year. some OF them are made
entirely of wood. but perhaps the most
of them have leather tops. Many of
these shoes are mad here in the city.
while large numbers are brought from
factories n from the woods of Wis
consin. To the uninitiated il may sound
rather strange to speak Of shoes being
brought from forests. but according to
excellent authority that is where most
of the shoes are made which are COM
posed entirely of wood These shoes
which are made out in the woods are
of course but roughly hewn and IA
scarcely be spoken of as having finish.
All OF the shoes. both those which are
all wood and those which have leather
tops, are made by hand, and pretty
roughly made at that. All of them are
for rough wear. There is never any
effort made to give them elegance of
finish.
Several classes of employees find the
wooden shoe a real necessity. but most
Of them find that the heavy wooden
sole with leather top will answer all
demands. The wooden shoe IL used for
two purposes-as a protection against
water and cold. The men who use
them are the workmen in dye factories.
-, 10 h'RF ~ AAa,h'
ries and the dressing departments of
poultry houses. The brewers and the
men who pluck the chickens and tur-
keys in the South Water street cell
lars find that a shoe wholly wooden Is
the best thing for them. That Is the
shoe they wear when engaged in that
part of the work which makes il
necessary for them to be where the
floor is wet n where water. flood or
beer Is likely to fall upon their shoes
from above.
For many of the workmen in all of
the factories and establishments men
toned above the ordinary leather shoes
would not do at all. Leather is a
ready conductor of heat and water will
go through IL in "A very short lime IL
h leather is kept in the water. IL
these men wore leather-soled shoes
they would be going about their work
with wet feet all of the time N the
feet would be rather cold besides. The
great number of cases of pneumonia,
rheumatism, etc, which would newt
ably follow is at once apparent.
1T may sound "A little far-fetched to
you, but / tell you ii is an actual fact
thai time and again customers have
told me that they thought wooden
shoes had preserved their lives" said
a dealer i'm the qu~eer-looking footwear
over on Randolph street. There Is
little doubt that every one of them
spoke the truth. One fellow worked
down in a basement at the ice cream
trade. and you can be sure he had a
pretty damp time of il. Ice would melt
and the water, of course. ran all over
the floor. If our man had worn only
ordinary shoes or boots his feet would
have been wet and cold from morning
until night. 1t would have killed him.
But instead of leather-soled shoes he
wore wooden one and his feet were
x-arp, md dr,v oil 80 ,hz tf.oA IA al.
a Ion tim for water to soak through
a wooden sole an inch or an inch and
a quarter thick. In tanneries and all
places where IL is wet and where there
are acids the wooden shoe must be
worm. Acids will go right through
leather, while they will hardly affect
wood at all. In some departments of
breweries the floors are wet all OF the
time and the workmen can only escape
wet feet by wearing shoes of wood.
Some of these workmen, who are also |
employed part of the time where the
floors are not wet. have big shoes which
they can slip on over their other shoes.
Here are the ones they use"
The dealer pulled out of a box a pair
of solid wooden shoes that looked large
enough to be made into a couple of
small tugboats. They were roughly
cut and each n vas about a foot and
n half in length. At the back part the
was cut hpNn nat 10 the sole, |
with no upper part to protect the heel.
the front part the opening was so
large that a man wearing a No. IL boot
could not possibly find difficulty insert
IL into the great shoe. When the
brewer starts for a room in which he
knows that the floor is wet he jumps
boots and all into n pair of these big
He shufles around through the
wet as long as ne has to or wants to.
the shoes on all the while.
When he leaves the room he puts off
the shoes and leaves them at the door.
Over on South Water street. where
and turkeys are deprived Of
by the thousands, wooden
are in big demand in the clean
.ng-rooms. The Clearinghouse are
in the Easements. Here the
ipartments are kept damp by the nee
assary presence Of large quantities of
1t would take a very short time
or a rkm to acquire very wet feet
Z he depended on leather shoes for
Blood from the fowls and
be water hat is thrown about would
wet his feet from the upper
tide ever il the floors were dry. SO
he finds a refuge for his feet in the solid
wooden shoes. which are wooden on the
.op as well as on the bottom.
Wooden-soled shoes are made on a
scale at a lumber of places I'm
chicago. There are no factories. the
being made at humble private
Often a nan and his wife put
n all of their time making shoes, the
wife usually being quite as expert I'm
he art as the husband. When they
made several pairs they bring
hem downtown to some store. where
hey dispose OF them for as good a
as possible. Nearly all of the
made in Chicago consist OF the
wooden sole and plain. heavy leather
'ppers. The sole is made Of poplar or
eastwood. on ccoun Of their light
less. If IL were made of any OF the
woods the weight, on account
II the great thickness. would be such
hat the shoe would be much too heavy
a wearer to conveniently carry
Usually the sole Is over an inch in
thickness with the normal increase at
he heel. About a quarter OF an inch
Glow the upper surface a groove an