Story Photos
 Photo by Greg Ebersole Howard Hartzog, owner of Longview Shoe Repair, reflects on the changes in the shoe business he's seen in the past 60 years as he prepares to close the shop. |
Last of the Cobblers: City's only shoe repairman closing his Commerce Ave. shop
Saturday, September 29, 2007 12:18 AM PDT
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleAfter 60 years in the cobbler business, Longview Shoe Repair owner Howard Hartzog said he's as battered and scuffed as the leather shoes that crowd every surface in his store.
Hartzog, 75, is closing up shop in the next few months and taking with him an increasingly bygone era where shoes were an investment worth repairing and people were thrifty enough to do so.
When Hartzog started in 1947, for example, a good pair of leather shoes cost $35 --- the same as his month's pay. Today he often tells customers it's cheaper to replace their shoes than pay him to repair them. Especially if it requires tricky and time-consuming hand stitching. That financial reality has led to one repair shop after another to fade into history.
"When I started here there were eight shoe repair shops in Longview and Kelso," Hartzog said, taking a break in his shop that still resembles historic photos of the business from the 1920s. "Today I'm the Last of the Mohicans."
"Oh no!" exclaimed Longview-Kelso Chamber of Commerce Director Rick Winsman when he heard the closure news. "It's going to be a loss for Longview, but more importantly it's very disappointing to see a lot of these professional trade craftsmen not surviving in today's economic climate."
"I think that we just live in a throw-away-and-buy-new society these days," customer Pat Lee opined Monday while waiting for some resoled loafers Monday. "I come out of the Depression, though, and I don't do things like that."
Hartzog agrees that today's cheaper shoes have diminished his business, but he also said workplace changes are key. The mills now buy workers new boots every two years, cutting back significantly on the lucrative boot repair business that once sustained the shop. And office workers don't sport the fancy dress shoes that are expensive enough to be worth repairing.
Hartzog also said many customers these days bring in shoes but then never pick them up.
"I've got shoes here from 2005," he said, rummaging through the piles of boots, shoes and sandals.
But Hartzog said he's also closing because he's just plain worn out.
Diagnosed with congestive heart failure a year and a half ago, he's never fully regained his former vim and vigor. And decades hunched over a sewing machine or shoe trimmer have gnarled his neck and shoulders with arthritis.
"I just can't produce the work I should be doing to make a living," Hartzog said, shaking his head and staring off into space. "I just don't have the energy."
Hartzog has been working in the repair shop since he was teenager, working part-time around school and a job a Fibre. The work and the equipment hasn't changed much since he started and his machines date back to the late 1940s. The shop's cash register has been in place even longer --- since 1924, a year after the shop opened.
Hartzog himself also has remained a shop staple after buying the store at 1155 Commerce St. in 1972 from George Quoidbach, the brother of the man who founded it in 1923. Thirty- and 20-year-old photographs from The Daily News archives show Hartzog in the same stained work apron tinkering amidst similar mounds of shoes.
The shop can appear to be a jumble, with bits of shoe parts scattered and squirreled away wherever there is room. But Hartzog can find what he needs in seconds --- even a box of shoes that date from 1800s and used to be displayed in the store's front window. Oftentimes he doesn't even need a customer's claim number, but instead disappears behind the counter and triumphantly pulls the correct shoes out from a pile of other footwear based on a description alone.
Hartzog believes his is the last original Longview business still in its original location --- aside from the mills. He'd like to see it remain open and would train someone interested in taking it on. But so far, he hasn't found any takers.
"It's getting to be a lost art," Hartzog said of the hammering, stitching and buffing he does to return shoes to their former glory. "Not many people want to do it anymore.
"I like it," he said with a shrug. "And I like the people."
Hartzog was hoping to sign on with Wal-Mart as a greeter, but has heard the stores are phasing out that job. He'll have to find work somewhere though because he said he can't live on his Social Security.
He's resigned about leaving shoes behind, but several customers this week were dismayed to learn of the closure. The exact closure date is still up in the air.
"You're going to be missed," Tina Moore told Hartzog Monday. "I don't want to see you go."
"I don't want to leave," Hartzog commiserated.
Hartzog is referring Moore and his other customers to Totem Shoe Repair in Hazel Dell, which already takes some of the complicated jobs Hartzog isn't up for anymore.
"They're youngsters in the business," he said of the owners, a twinkle in his eye. "They're 62."
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