Nikolai Blahuczyn was born in 1922 into a family of shoemakers. His early years were steeped in the tradition of craftsmanship. Nikolai met his wife Maria in Germany. They immigrated to the US in 1952, settling in Spokane, Washington. He worked briefly on a farm before joining White's Shoe Company. There, he honed his skills, but harbored a desire to craft boots from start to finish. In 1964, he fulfilled this dream by opening Nick's Shoe Shop, dedicating himself to handcrafting boots. Over the years, Nick's business grew, attracting loyal customers and earning a reputation for quality. In 1980, Nick sold the business to Gary Meyers. The shop continued to thrive, expanding its offerings and customer base. Gary was instrumental in getting Nick's boots to hot shot crews all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Loggers from North Idaho came to Nick's every year for their cork boots and linemen from all over the country wanted only Nicks. In subsequent ownership changes, Nicks remained a fixture in Spokane, adapting to market demands while preserving its heritage. Since 2013, the company has flourished under the leadership of Steve Mowe and his son Shyler Mowe. 

Nicks makes the best boot you can buy and really the the product speaks for itself. You know, we don't really like to crow about it, we don't want to beat our chests. Uh we let our work stand for us.

Steve's roots in the logging industry ran deep, working alongside his father and grandfather in their Elma, Washington logging business. 

I used to wear logging boots uh when I was working my way through college and as a logger, and I actually worked with my dad falling trees. Learned the importance of really good boots.

This upbringing informed Steve's vision for Nicks, leading to its expansion into heritage boots, including the Robert, named after his father. 

We started offering what we now call the heritage boot line, the Robert. Uh I named after my father for what it's worth. I don't know why that's emotional. 

Today, Nicks Handmade Boots stands as a testament to Nikolai Blahuczyn's enduring legacy, a legacy of passion, perseverance, and the pursuit of excellence. 

I've been doing this for five years. It's been it's been a great journey. Um we had 24 employees when I started in March of 2020. Now we have a lot more. 

We make most things like almost completely by hand back here. So a lot of it takes a long time. Um you know a lot of a lot of work is going into these things. 

Hi, my name is Luke. I am the small leather goods supervisor here at Nicks Handmade Boots. I think the biggest thing is just we started offering like uh leather goods kind of at the same quality as our boots. Just really well made, extremely heavy duty, and I think the word just got out because we have so many leathers here at Nicks that we can make belts out of everything that we have and other companies can't do that. And I think that was a I think the heritage belt was actually one of the really big things that we started offering where things started taking off. 

So, we want you to know that even though we've been around for 60 years, and some stuff has changed, we still believe that we make the absolute highest quality shoes and boots on the planet. We work really hard to do that. We know that your money, your dollar bills are as precious to you as ours, our, to us. And we don't take that I don't take that for granted. You know, standing at this sole stitching machine, I want it to be high quality, I want it to be the best I can do, because that's the way I was taught, and I try to instill that in the guys that I train, like look, man, we're telling everybody out there in the whole world that we're the best of the best. So, we got to have some pride in what we do here, it's it's it's it's very important. 

I I think, you know, if we can grow this business to where, like, this is a place people can build careers, can make enough money to like buy homes and put their kids through college and build lives, I've always wanted of that. Nicks has gone through a lot of variations in construction processes and and people over the last 60 years. You know, I think as long as you're you're really focused relentlessly on making the best boot possible in the United States with, you know, people that are proud of what they do and are paid fairly, and in a way that they can be successful in their in their lives, um then I think you're true to that, true to that vision. Hopefully, our products enrich your lives, and um I thank you for kind of helping us. Well you've you've helped people here buy houses, you've helped people here put their kids through school, um just just what I was talking about, and if we didn't have the customers, then none of that's possible.