The “world’s largest cowboy boots” outside North Star Mall in 2022. The giant boot sculpture is one of San Antonio’s most recognizable landmarks.
San Antonio Express-News file photo
Crews led by artist Bob Wade, who designed the “world’s largest cowboy boots” are shown installing the sculpture in 1979 outside North Star Mall. Mall ownership titled the sculpture “The Giant Justins.”
COURTESY PHOTO/Courtesy photo
Western mural artist Stylle Read touches up the iconic giant boot sculpture outside North Star Mall in 2006.
NICOLE FRUGE/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
A nighttime view of “The Giant Justins” outside North Star Mall on Nov. 11, 2013.
Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News
Nearly 47 years ago, one of San Antonio’s most recognizable landmarks made its way to Texas.
The giant cowboy boot sculpture outside North Star Mall has received worldwide attention since its 1979 creation. It’s made a few roadside attraction lists and its true measurements have been the subject of some minor debate.
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This week’s San Antonio Explained takes a closer look at “The Giant Justins” sculpture, the artist who created it and the bidding war that got the boots to the Alamo City.
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Oversized art
Texas artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade created the 40-foot-tall sculpture in 1979 as part of a Washington, D.C. initiative called the Washington Project for the Arts. Wade’s public art exhibit was titled “Study of Giant Cowboy Boots.”
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Organizers of the project reportedly reached out to Wade requesting he create something representative of his unique style. They paid him $7,000 to make his creation and found a vacant lot where he could begin erecting his work.
Wade, known for an uninhibited, offbeat style that often was depicted in oversized sculptures of Texas symbols, made the boots out of mostly donated materials, according to newspaper archives. Covered with urethane foam and painted to look like ostrich skin, the boots were molded onto a steel frame that could be disassembled and put back together.
Besides the boots, one of the Austin-born artist’s best-known works includes a 40-foot-long iguana that was once perched atop the Lone Star Cafe in New York and later adorned the rooftop of a veterinary hospital at the Fort Worth Zoo. Some of his other oversized public art include a 70-foot-tall saxophone in Houston and 10-foot-tall dancing frogs in Dallas.
Wade’s “Giant Cowboy Boots” were on display in the nation’s capital for about five months before the artwork went up for sale.
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Reflecting on his eye-catching boot sculpture in a 2009 interview with the San Antonio Express-News, Wade called it a tribute to Texas.
“We called it a monument in a city of monuments,” Wade said. “This particular one was a monument to the cowboy boot.”
Trek to Texas
The Rouse Company, which owned North Star Mall, bought the boots for $20,000, following a bidding war with other Texas sites. The cost is roughly $80,000 in today’s dollars.
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The boots were dismantled and transported to San Antonio atop three flatbed 18-wheelers. The truck drivers reportedly had to take the back roads the last leg of their journey after getting stuck under a highway overpass, archives show.
The boots were assembled outside the mall, facing Loop 410 and near the area of the mall that later housed Saks Fifth Avenue. The boots were officially unveiled on Jan. 16, 1980.
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Biggest boots
Mall ownership gave the boots “The Giant Justins” moniker, and for years the boots were touted as measuring 40 feet high and 30 feet from heel to toe, according to newspaper archives.
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Though Guinness World Records officially named the sculpture the “largest cowboy boots” in 2014, the boots don’t quite measure up to the 40-foot billing.
Guinness, the widely recognized record-keeping authority, says the boots are 35 feet and 3 inches high, 33 feet from heel to toe and nine feet wide.
Wade once quipped that each boot is big enough to hold 300,000 gallons of beer.
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City landmark
Now a city landmark, the boots have been featured on postcards and in other tourism materials for the city and state.
Last October, Guinness named the boots one of its must-see attractions on its 2025 “record-breaking road trip” list.
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Wade, who died in 2019, reportedly once said the boots would probably outlast him.
“It makes me feel good that maybe I can leave something behind,” he said.