The Horween Leather Company supplies many prominent shoe- and apparel-makers from the same Bucktown factory it’s occupied for decades.
The trendy Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago is an unlikely place for America’s most prominent tannery. But there it is: In the heart of the Windy City among the nightlife, shopping and residents who enjoy a mix of urban and suburban lifestyles sits the Horween Leather Company.
If you wonder why this 220,000 square-foot factory is located on a 5-acre plot of land in one of Chicago’s most sought-after residential neighborhoods the answer is simple: Horween was there long before Bucktown became so fashionable.
Horween began its tannery and leather making business in 1905 when Ukrainian immigrant Isadore Horween decided he could make the best leather in Chi-town.
“My great-grandfather started the business when leather was huge in Chicago because of the stockyards,” said current Horween Leather Co. President Arnold “Skip” Horween III. “There was a leather exhibit at the World’s Fair in Chicago and my great-grandfather met the man who was putting it on.
“My great-grandfather, who was a very self-confident gentleman, said to the guy, ‘that’s nice leather but I can make better.’ The gentleman told him if he could make better leather then maybe he should come see him Monday morning. So, he went and got a job, and six years after that he became plant superintendent, and six years after that he went on his own.”
Now, 120 years later, Horween is renowned as the finest leather maker in the United States.
If you have read the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s many profiles of American-made apparel and footwear companies, you may have noticed how often the name Horween comes up when companies share their sourcing information. It is typically a top-quality product maker that manufactures with Horween’s finest leathers, and the list of shoe and apparel companies that prefer it is long.
And as a consumer, the list is long of American footwear and apparel makers that prefer Horween’s finely tanned leather. If you own a pair of shoes or boots manufactured by Alden, Allen Edmonds, Wolverine or Rancourt, you are most likely wearing Horween. If you own a leather jacket from the Schott Brothers in New York or accessories such as wallets and cell phone jackets from Nomad in California, you are holding Horween.
“We are lucky, we have a nice crossover presentation,” said the 68-year-old Horween. “It’s a nice broad different representation of different products and different types of products.
“Shoes are the second largest category for us. Sporting Goods is the largest. We make the leather for footballs, basketballs, and baseball gloves.”
Horween has been the exclusive leather supplier for the Wilson NFL footballs manufactured in Ada, Ohio since 1941. The company also supplies Nokona Gloves in Texas for its construction of top-quality, American-made baseball mitts.
Horween uses many different methods of tanning its steer, horse and bison hides. A long-time practice is chrome-tanning, which is a preserving process, says Horween.
“There are multiple ways you can do that. The best-known ways are vegetable tanning and that is done primarily with tree bark,” said Horween. “Things like saddles and harnesses are vegetable tanned. The skin of the hide is preserved with chrome salt.
“Everything is tanned twice. It is a totally customer-driven product. Do you want the grades to be clear? How much finish do you want to have on your final product? How much coloration do you want in terms of how you are going to ultimately treat it?
“You can think of like your finished wood whereas if you want to see the grain you will stain it with dyes. If you want more color, you use what is like paint. There is no quality judgment there.”
Horween is best known for its fine Shell Cordovan leather, which is created using a hide that comes from the hindquarters of a horse.
“We still run my great-grandfather’s formula, so it takes us six months,” said Skip. “It’s slowly vegetable-tanned in pits and then it is hand-oiled, then we shave it and then we stain and polish it.
“We are probably the most expensive tannery in the U.S. so it’s $7.50 a foot for our real leather and the Shell Cordovan is like $80 to $85 a foot. It’s our most expensive product.”
Horween points out that everything they do with animal hides is a byproduct of the meat industry.
“There is no horse that gets taken down for its hide,” he said. “I’ve been here since 1978, and we have not used a U.S. horse hide the whole time I’ve been here. There are places like Eastern Europe, parts of Scandinavia, France and Belgium where they still eat horse meat.”
Horween Leather Co.’s tannery is run by 125 employees, 100 of which are directly involved in the leather-making process. The family business treats about 2,500 hides a week and the finished product not only supplies American manufacturers; it is also sent all over the world.
“We still do a leather show in Italy twice a year. We feel it is very cool that we can sell to Italy for the Italians,” said Horween. “We must be doing something right if we can do that. There are certain things that we do that they don’t. Some of the Italian finishers are crazy skilled, they are so good.”
Horween Leather Co. has been a family business through five generations. Its wholesale customers are approximately 100 direct sales accounts, but the Second City tannery’s leather can be purchased in smaller amounts from places like Tannery Row in Chicago.
“Most of the leathers you see out there, including the ones that we do, are what we call a combination-tanned leather,” said Horween. “We take a chrome-tanned piece of leather and do a vegetable re-tan.
“For example, the leather we do for Wilson for the NFL football is combination-tanned leather. What you are trying to capture too is you want the strength and you want the heat resistance, but you want some moldability. The number of variations is almost infinite.
“Our football that we do with proprietary formulas and steps, there is nothing in there that you couldn’t go on the market and buy if you knew what to buy. It’s a combination of how we do it and how long we take to do it that makes a difference.”
This Horween formula comes from 120 years of experience tanning hides and making leather in the same Chicago location. If it is up to Skip Horween, the family tannery will continue to manufacture in Bucktown with family members running the show.
“So, years ago, when it looked like our industry was completely exporting itself as fast as they could load it on a boat, I talked to my dad and I said, ‘Isadore came here chasing the American dream, right? He did well and we’ve been lucky and that’s all fine. We’ve had 100 years on this thing so if I could guarantee you that if we moved the operation to China that you would get another 100 years, would you do it?’
“He said, ‘you do whatever the hell you want. I’m a Chicago guy.’”
You can’t get any more made in America than that.