98% of shoes sold in America are imported. These aren't.

Pick up a Red Wing Iron Ranger. Feel the weight. Heavy. Solid. The leather is thick enough to stop a thorn.

It takes more than 230 steps to make one pair. The leather comes from Red Wing’s own tannery — the S.B. Foot Tanning Company — right there in the same Minnesota river town. The soles are stitched, not glued. The welt is Goodyear construction. You can resole them. Twice. Three times. A well-cared-for pair lasts a decade or more.

The Iron Ranger costs about $350. Where does that money go? I traced it.

Estimated breakdown based on footwear industry benchmarks and Red Wing’s publicly available information.

Start with materials. The full-grain leather alone runs roughly $70–80. Add the Vibram sole, cork midsole, brass speed hooks, waxed laces, and leather insole — total materials cost is about $90–100. That’s around 27% of the price. The leather is domestic. Some components — like the Italian-made Vibram soles — are imported.

Next: labor. These aren’t machine-stamped sneakers. Workers cut, stitch, last, welt, sole, and finish each pair by hand. Labor runs about $75–85 per pair — roughly 23%. That money goes straight to paychecks in Red Wing, Minnesota and Potosi, Missouri.

Overhead — the factory, equipment, energy, quality testing, and ISO certification — eats another $35–40. About 11%.

If you buy from redwingshoes.com or a Red Wing store, the company keeps the full retail margin — roughly $85–95. That’s about 26%. Buy from a third-party retailer, and they take that slice instead.

Marketing and brand — the website, the heritage story, the factory tours — runs about $20–25. Around 7%. And company profit lands near $20–25. About 6%.

Here’s the math that matters. About 60% of that $350 — materials, labor, and overhead — stays in American hands. The leather is tanned in Minnesota. The boots are stitched in Minnesota and Missouri. The quality testing happens in Red Wing.

Compare that to a $100 imported boot. The leather is tanned overseas. The stitching is done overseas. The glue is applied overseas. Maybe $15 of that $100 touches American hands — the retailer and the trucking company. The rest leaves the country.

And here’s the kicker. That $100 boot wears out in a year. Maybe two. The Iron Ranger lasts ten. Do the math and the American boot is cheaper per year than the import. You pay more up front. But you pay less per step.

Red Wing is private, so you can’t buy shares. But the story tells you something about the market. When 98% of an industry is imported, the 2% that’s American has pricing power. Red Wing doesn’t compete on price. It competes on trust, durability, and the fact that the boots are made here.

If you want public exposure to U.S. footwear and apparel manufacturing, look at Rocky Brands (NASDAQ: RCKY), which still operates a factory in Nelsonville, Ohio and makes some Durango and Rocky boots domestically. Or Wolverine World Wide (NYSE: WWW), which still produces some lines in the U.S. Both trade at modest valuations.

The bigger play is the “buy American” shift itself. Consumers are paying more for domestic goods — on purpose. That trend lifts every company still manufacturing in this country. Red Wing proves there’s still a market for things that are built to last, built by hand, and built right here.