A few weeks back I had the pleasure of making a trip out to Portland OR in the company of some other great dudes from various points on the map.
Having always wanted to get out that way, it was the fine people at Danner who provided me the reason to finally pay a visit to The City of Roses.

The Danner boot factory sits some forty minutes outside of downtown Portland. A relatively new facility for the boot makers, the entire operation is as stream lined, lean and efficient as one could imagine.
We had the chance to walk the factory floor, from station to station, getting the grand tour from Danner manufacturing engineer Casey Rakoczy and a look at the technologies and production methods involved in the making of a pair of Danner boots.
The factory tour certainly isn’t new territory round these parts of the internet. It’s been done thoroughly and so well by many many others. I won’t hazard an attempt in that usual format.
What I will say, before allowing the accompanying photos to speak for themselves, are a few impressions that jumped out and stuck with me:
- The absolute efficiency by which such a tough wearing and quality product is made.
- Danner, for a publicly traded company, still very much retains something of the same small, true family business feel it was built on.
- The employee loyalty and skill level is staggering. Many of the floor workers deftly rotate between duties and machines.
- The earnest and sincere pride and enthusiasm on every level behind each and every pair of boots coming off the factory floor. Along with the complete dedication to the maintaining and re-crafting (if and when needed) of that product.
- Pretty amazing to see some of the original machines, temperamental and properly maintained, still in use after so many decades.
- The globalness of Danner’s work force as evinced by the map of the world hanging in the factory cafeteria.
- The vast range of boots Danner produces; from the gorgeous Stumptown line to Crater Rim hiker to the RAT made for and in conjunction with the USMC.
- Their utter commitment to quality, long wear, durability and care for every pair of boots made.
- Just good people making quality boots in the US. Period.
I’ll leave it there.
Note: After our tour of the factory, we were told of a “moderate” 5 mile hike through the beautiful Columbia River Gorge scheduled for the following day. You can catch a glimpse of a few of the dozen or so falls we hiked past over at BESTMADEPROJECTS. But more on that to come. Stay tuned.