Enid Justin
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Enid Justin (1893-1990) was born in Montague County, Texas and was founder of the Nocona Boot Company.
[edit] Family life
Enid Justin married Julius Stelzer in 1915 and had a baby born in 1916. The baby girl, Anna Jo, died in 1918, the same year that her father died. She and Julius divorced in 1934, and Ms. Justin never remarried, instead devoted her life to the city of Nocona and her proud heritage of quality boot-making.
[edit] Nocona Boot Company
Daughter of famed bootmaker Herman Joseph Justin, Enid Justin grew up in the boot-making business. A student of the craft, she opened the Nocona Boot Company in 1925 after brothers, John, Avis and Earl, decided to move her father's business to Fort Worth, Texas.
The business began with Nocona's remaining employees of her father's business and her husband Julius. Julius served as President and Enid worked many jobs including shipping clerk, bill collector and salesperson. The oil industry brought newfound success to the company when oil was found in Nocona's North Field in 1926. The Nocona Boot Company began supplying lace-up boots to oil field workers. The company prospered, even during the Depression and World War II period, and moved to a new 30,000 sq. ft. facility on U.S. Route 82 in 1947.
Nocona Boot Company became one of the top five boot-makers in the country as a result of Ms. Justin's intrepid work ethic, dilligence, and devotion to her employees. The company expanded in the late 1970s and early 80s, opening factories in Vernon and Gainesville.
In 1981, she merged the company with her brothers' Justin Industries. Throughout the 1980s, she continued to devote her energies to civic actions and causes. She gave the city the money required to expand and develop the city park and often donated to the city's boys and girls little league programs. On October 14, 1990, Enid Justin died in Nocona at the age of 96.
In 1999, Justin Industries closed the Nocona Boot Company plant in Nocona and consolidated all boot-making in El Paso, Texas and Cassville, Missouri thus ending over 100 years of quality bootmaking in Nocona.
