johnny.jpgMy Chacos have certainly been around the block. They’ve been down some wild and wooley rivers, been submerged in mud, seen Brown’s Canyon more than a few times, and even been in a wedding or two. They are my favorite summertime shoe when life calls for adventure near, in, and around water. They’ve seen the walls of the Grand Canyon and helped me up to Havasu Falls (where they protected my feet from the impact of jumping off the cliff there into the stream). They traveled with me in Mexico, Australia and Zimbabwe. I’ve always been proud of my Chacos because of not only how long they’ve lasted (8 or 9 years as I recall), but that they were produced right here in Colorado, just on the other side of the divide.

Well, not any more. Michelle Nijhuis, a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, writes in this article,

“…in the past two decades, shoe manufacturing has rapidly decamped overseas. Now, only about 1 percent of all shoes bought in the US are made here, with the vast majority of the rest made in China. (US military footwear, required by law to be made domestically, helps sustain what stateside manufacturing remains.)

Chaco, founded on small-town loyalty, resisted the trend. While the company sent some of its manufacturing abroad, it continued to make the bulk of its sandals – some 320,000 pairs a year – in this isolated Colorado valley. Today, that’s about to change. “We knew it had to happen,” says Mr. Paigen, Chaco’s founder and owner. ‘There was no way we could continue to compete in the marketplace and have our material costs so much higher than everyone else’s.’ “

So long Chaco….

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