Red Wing Shoes

Red Wing Shoes (Red Wing Shoe Company, LLC) is an American footwear company based in Red Wing, Minnesota. The company was founded by Charles H. Beckman in 1905.^[1]

Red Wing Shoe Company, LLC

Red Wing store, Manhattan
Company type	Private
Industry	Footwear
Founded	1905; 120 years ago (1905)
Founder	Charles H. Beckman
Headquarters	Red Wing, Minnesota, U.S.
Products	Work boots work shoes casual boots accessories
Website	redwingshoes.com

Products

The company produces Oxfords, chukkas, hiking boots, and logger styles, as well as work boots. While the core of Red Wing's focus is on work boots, in 2008 Red Wing Shoes added a Heritage catalog and also has experimented with more fashion-oriented shoes.^[2]

Manufacturing

Boots being made at a Red Wing Shoes factory in the U.S.

The Red Wing Shoe brand is primarily handmade in the USA with American materials at the company's plants in Red Wing, Minnesota and Potosi, Missouri. They also manufactured shoes in a Danville, Kentucky, factory, until its closure in June 2010.^[3][4] As of 2014, there are six sources of manufacture: completely made in the USA, made in the USA with imported materials, assembled in the USA with imported components, made in China, made in Korea, and made in Vietnam.^[5]

In addition to manufacturing footwear under their own name, Red Wing Shoes also manufactures shoes under the Irish Setter Boots, Vasque, Carhartt (discontinued in 2011), and Worx brands. These other Red Wing brands include a majority of models manufactured in Vietnam and Cambodia. In order to comply with ASTM F 2413-11 and M I/75 C/75 standards for impact and compression, Red Wing Shoes manufactures many of their styles with steel, non-metallic, and aluminum safety toes and offers puncture-resistant options that meet the ASTM F 2413-11 standard.^[6] Red Wing Shoes also produces footwear that is static-dissipative in order to control the amount of electrical discharge from the body and electrical hazard in order to provide extra protection from accidental contact with electrically energized objects.

Safety issues

In 2013, Red Wing Shoes recalled over 114,000 pairs of steel toe boots due to defective toe caps that could fail to protect wearers' feet.^[7][8]

See also

• St. James Hotel (Red Wing, Minnesota), hotel owned by Red Wing Shoes
• S. B. Foot Tanning Company, leather tannery owned by Red Wing Shoes

Further reading

• Marvy, Patrice Avon and Vrooman, Nicholas Curchin, Heart and Sole: A Story of the Red Wing Shoe Company, 1986
• A Pictorial History of Red Wing Shoe Company's First 100 Years, Red Wing Republican Eagle Press, 2005