1975

After years of decline in the US Footwear Manufacturing business Irving Drew announced he was either going to shut down the factory or sell it. He was asking 1.3 million for the then failing factory. John Brooks only had $500 in cash but desperately wanted to buy it. He negotiated the price down to $640,000 and with the backing of Farmers Home Administration and a consortium of five local banks he bought it in 1975. When he called his son Mike, who was working at a Milwaukee leather tannery at the time, he immediately came back home to work with his dad in Nelsonville and help run the family business.