Russell Moccasin has run its workshop on the banks of the Fox River in Berlin, Wisconsin since 1898, building boots through a patented, proprietary process the company describes as sculpting rather than simple assembly. Its Bird Shooter model, introduced around 1915, became one of the most broadly capable boots ever made, the first to complete the Appalachian Trail, the first to fly to the stratosphere, and a boot worn on WWII battlefields. More than a century later, the same layer-by-layer construction, passed from master to apprentice, still goes into every pair.