By Fran Maiuri
September 2, 2025
Fran Maiuri has an M.A. and ED.S in education from the University of Arizona and a B.A. in Behavioral Science, a multi-disciplinary program with a focus on Anthropology, Psychology and Sociology from SUNY Plattsburgh. She worked for over 20 years, much of it in rural and remote Native Alaskan villages, supporting students, teachers, and parents to educate students with very different learning needs in their local schools. In her retirement she volunteers for a variety of Southwest archaeological projects. She is a Site Steward and Site Steward Area Coordinator in the Tucson, AZ Region and has done Interpretation and site stewarding at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico. She volunteers for professional archaeologists from the University of Arizona, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, University of Missouri, Archaeology Southwest and Saguaro National Park on projects surveying public lands, recording ancient and historical sites, and recording rock imagery. She was honored and excited to learn more about historical archaeology when she was accepted into the Apex Logging Camp field school as a Passport in Time (PIT) Volunteer in 2023 and 2024.
For more about Apex or the Apex, Arizona Archaeology Project, visit our website or email Dr. Emily Dale at emily.dale@nau.edu.
As a Passport in Time volunteer, I arrived at the Apex Logging Camp Project, first in 2023 and then again in 2024 in Lowa®, low cut, leather and fabric hiking shoes with Vibram® soles, that had been well worn through many miles of mountain and desert hiking.
I arrived ready for work in the dirt and excited to learn. Little did I know that in the process of studying Apex, a 1928 to 1936 Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company logging camp along the Grand Canyon Railway, after finding a shoe between a can dump and structure, that I would be captured by footwear artifacts that I wanted to understand better. This blog takes you on a brief walk through studying footwear through different time periods and to share what we are learning about footwear in the past and at the Apex Logging Camp.
Earliest Shoes Documented in the U.S.
The oldest surviving shoes in the U.S. known at this time are Sagebrush Bark Sandals, made long ago by people in what is now southeast Oregon. In the 1930’s Luther Cressman, an archaeologist, found these sagebrush bark sandals in Fort Rock Cave below ash from a local volcano. When carbon dating became possible, the Fort Rock Sandals were dated at 10,200 – 9,300 years old. So the history of shoes in the U.S. begins at least that long ago!
Early Shoes in the U.S. Southwest
Research into footwear in the U.S. Southwest indicates that yucca sandals and those made from other materials existed from about 8,000 BCE to1350 CE. Ben Bellorado (2019) studied one particular type of these sandals, those made from woven yucca.
Bellorado determined that the sandals were used functionally, based on heel and ball of the foot wear. After studying many sandals from the southwest he noticed that the patterns of the woven yucca varied, demonstrating perhaps a connection to place, the maker, or preference of the wearer. Sandal patterns seem to be important as the same patterns are seen in painted murals, cloth, and rock imagery. Even today we can see a variety of patterns in the dirt from the soles of different brands of shoes. Ancient people too could have identified who had walked there by the pattern on the sole of the sandal-wearing person who had come before them.
Moving closer to the time when Apex was active, Homer Thiel describes shoes from excavations in the Presidio Area of Tucson, Arizona. Homer quotes Hilario Gallego, who was born in Tucson in 1850:
Up to the mid-19th century, most shoes were hand made by individuals. The shoes were all leather and had notable characteristics like a turned in seam where the upper, middle, and outer sole were sewn together. Towns like Tucson had multiple shoemakers who supplied the footwear for the local population.
After 1839, when Charles Goodyear discovered a way to more completely cure rubber, more shoes included rubber components. At this time, shoemakers were still sewing the sole to the upper. Then by the end of the 19th century, shoe manufacturing had changed considerably. Shoes began to be mass produced.
With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, people in the West could order footwear from manufacturers to the east and have them transported by rail. By the 1920’s, manufactured rubber soled shoes had become common and a cement was beginning to be used rather than sewing the parts together. This change from sewn to cemented shoes was happening during the time when Apex was active, and shoe remnants of both types are seen at Apex. Also rubber is a component of many of the shoe remnants that remain at Apex.
Historical Site Analyses and Shoes
The Historic Artifact Identification Guide posted online by the Bureau of Land Management, describes what to look for in historic cans and other metal, glass bottles, ceramics, firearms cartridges, bricks, and lanterns that can help us understand more about their age and origin.
Shoes also have indicators that can be used to identify how they were constructed (hand or machine made?) what material they are made of, and labels they might include. Researchers use these characteristics of shoes to analyze shoe artifacts on historical sites. Unlike cans, bottles and structural remnants and perhaps more like the toys and other household items, shoes are personally tied (pun intended) to individuals at the site and are important to understanding life at the camp.
Given that we haven’t found Apex footwear artifacts under volcanic ash, like the Fort Rock sandals, nor in a well where leather and rubber are known to be much better preserved, most of the Apex shoe artifacts are non-diagnostic. However we are learning from them and there is more we can learn. Analyses comparing types of shoe artifacts and where they were recorded on site, could give us more information on the people and activities at Apex Logging Camp, but that is research for another time.
Some Things We Know From Shoes at Apex
Data from 2022-2024 field work at Apex, reflect more than 175 shoe fragments recorded. Each has been described, photographed and associated with the locus in which it was seen. Shoe parts were found in can dumps and in and near structures on the site. In the 2022 field season, the season that revealed the most shoe artifacts (106), Can Dump 2 in Locus A contained the largest number and highest concentrations of shoe fragments. Locus A includes the kitchen and dining areas, a public area of the camp. Perhaps one of the structures nearby was a place where shoes could be repaired.
Shoe artifacts comprised the greatest number of clothing related artifacts overall. They included whole or remnants of all leather shoes, leather shoes with rubber soles, shoes constructed with ferrous nails and tacks, shoes with nail caps, shoes with metal lace eyelets, and leather insoles, midsoles and perhaps an aglet. Shoe fragments were black and red/pink. Most of the artifacts were fragments of leather or rubber and associated metal. A few shoes had embossing that could still be read partially or completely giving us specific information.
One shoe reading “USA/NO.241” is probably a government issue shoe. United States government issue items typically begin with USA. The Civilian Conservation Corps from about 1933-1939 issued shoes to CCC workers with embossing as shown on the photo. From this CCC uniform photo, we can see that “USA/NO. 246” is on the heel. Perhaps the shoe remnant that we saw was U.S. government issued to someone who ended up later working at Apex. NO.241 would be an earlier issue which might fit with the 1928-1936 active time period at Apex compared to the CCC issue 1933-1939.
Writing on another two shoes’ heels suggest sole thickness, reading “M/9 1/2/11-IRON” and “Y / 21⁄2 / 14 IRON / 93 B-1” (see photo). IRON numbers are an older measure of the thickness of the leather. There are 48 irons in an inch. The embossing indicating 14 IRON would be constructed with leather about .30 of an inch while the Size 9 1/2 11 IRON shoe would have used leather approximately .23 of an inch thick.
Shoe artifacts confirm that people of all ages lived at Apex. They were found in dumps and in and near structures. They represented people of all sizes. They include a very small baby shoe sole, at least one complete leather shoe with a repaired sole, children’s shoes, shoe buckles, a variety of adult shoes and shoes with decorative uppers.
And…
From one shoe related artifact we even have information about a mail order company active at the time of Apex. One of the shoehorns found on site has decipherable writing on it. The Chicago Mail Order Company began in the early 1900’s and became a popular mail order company like Sears and Montgomery Wards before them. Shoehorns, like the one recorded at Apex, were given out by the company as a form of promotion beginning in the 1930’s, “To All the Family”.
Mystery Artifact
One unidentified leather shoe sole reads “[…]ork 100”. While the photo does not show the writing, perhaps someone reading this knows what it might mean!
Sources
Anderson, A.B. 1970 From Family Home to Slum Apartment: Archaeological Analysis Within the Urban Renewal Area, Tucson, Arizona. M.A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona.
Arizona State Museum 2025. Walking in Their Footsteps: Twined Sandals from Broken Flute Cave. Arizona State Museum Online Exhibits. https://statemuseum.arizona.edu/online-exhibit/sandals-broken-flute-cave
Bellorado, B. 2024 Road Signs and Walking Shoes: Sandal Imagery as Part and Parcel of the Chaco Road System, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society 19 February 19 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8gNySSYr04&ab_channel= TheArizonaArchaeological%26HistoricalSociety
Bureau of Land Management n.d. Historic Artifact Identification Guide https://www.ntc.blm.gov/krc/system/files?file=legacy/uploads/22015/HistoricArtifactIDGuide.pdf
Clayman, Andrew n.d. Chicago Mail Order Co., est. 1889. Made in Chicago Museum. https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/single-post/chicago-mail-order-co/
Concord, D. 2025 A Handy Guide to Leather Thickness and Weight—With a Chart. Liberty Leather Goods. 21 February 2025 https://www.libertyleathergoods.com/leather-thickness-weight/
Connolly, T J. et al 2016 Getting Beyond the Point: Textiles of the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene in the Northwestern Great Basin. American Antiquity 81(3):490-514.
Historic Jamestowne 2024 These Shoes Were Made For Walkin’: Leather shoes from The Governor’s Well. Archaeology Blog 9 July 2024. https://historicjamestowne.org/these-shoes-were-made-for-walkin-leather-shoes-from-the-governors-well/
Ledbetter, Erik n.d. Dress Uniform 1933-1939.Civilian Conservation Corps Uniforms Handbook https://sites.google.com/view/ccc-uniforms/dress-uniform-1933-39
Thiel, J.H. 2006 Historic Era Artifacts, In Rio Nuevo Archaeology, 2000-2003: Investigations at the San Agustín Mission and Mission Gardens, Tucson Presidio, Tucson Pressed Brick Company, and Clearwater Site, edited by J. Homer Thiel and Jonathan B. Mabry, pp. 12.2-12.24. Desert Archaeology, Inc.
University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History n.d. Great Basin Sandals. https://mnch.uoregon.edu/collections-galleries/great-basin-sandals