By Rafe Calder
A shoe begins as a block of wood. The block is called a last, it sets the shape, and whoever controls the last controls the fit. Spain’s shoe country keeps a whole room of them.
The country in question is around Elda, which Atlas Obscura places about 140 km from Valencia, and Elche. Two towns carry the argument. Both claim a large share of the story. The sources do not settle which deserves more, and we do not either.
Elda: from cobblers to factories
Atlas Obscura, a travel and curiosities site, says leather work and cobbling began in Elda in the middle of the eighteenth century. A hundred years later, it says, the craft had consolidated from small manufacturers into a full industry. By the end of the nineteenth century, Elda had several large shoe factories, some employing more than 400 workers.
The European Route of Industrial Heritage, a heritage network, gives a matching outline. Elda became an important shoemaking centre in the nineteenth century. By the 1960s, it says, footwear was Spain’s largest export industry, and Elda hosted international footwear fairs known as FICIA.
The Footwear Museum’s own website gives a sharper pair of facts. It says the footwear industry reached the largest surplus in Spain’s trade balance in 1967, and that FICIA was born in Elda as a national fair in 1960. In that short time, the museum says, it overcame citrus fruits as the main export. These claims come from the museum itself, which has a reason to stress them. We found no second source for the 1967 figure.
The museum and what it holds
The European heritage network says the museum opened in a purpose-built building in 1999 and was renamed in 2015, taking the name of a professor who worked with students from the late 1980s to collect items for future exhibitions. We leave the professor’s name out.
The museum site describes the Machinery Room. It says one collection there, named for an early last maker who began work in the last third of the nineteenth century, is among the unique collections in the world for the manufacture of lasts. Some of the machines worked by animal traction or the force of water, which is why the first workshops stood near the river Vinalopó. The room also shows machinery from the end of the nineteenth and the start of the twentieth century for assembling and finishing shoes, including examples made by the United Shoe Machinery Company, which according to the page leased them to factories in the United States, Europe and Latin America.
Atlas Obscura describes the other side: hand tools, vintage machinery, mass-produced and prototype models, award-winning designs, miniatures, and an unusual nineteenth-century spiked shoe for de-husking chestnuts. It says the museum holds over 12,000 pairs. The site also reports that the museum claims the world’s largest shoe, and adds that the jury may be out on that. We agree with the caution.
Elche: the other half of the argument
VisitElche, the city’s tourism site, says about 42 per cent of the shoes produced in Spain are now made in Elche. It describes a shoe museum run by a footwear company, with two rooms. The first explains the origins of the shoe industry in the city, and the second covers traditional manufacturing. The same page traces Elche’s industry back to a nineteenth-century craft, which it names as the espadrille, and says that the city became “purely industrial” once the first factories appeared.
So Elda’s sources talk about history, with the fair and the export boom, while Elche’s source talks about present share. That is a difference of tense. Our reading is that the two towns are partners in one regional industry more than rivals, but none of these sources says so.
Dates in order
- Mid-18th century: leather work and cobbling begin in Elda, according to Atlas Obscura.
- Mid-19th century: consolidation into a full industry, according to Atlas Obscura.
- Late 19th century: factories with over 400 workers, according to Atlas Obscura.
- 1960: the national fair is born in Elda, according to the museum.
- 1967: the footwear industry records the greatest trade surplus, according to the museum.
- 1999: the museum opens in its building, according to the European heritage network.
- 2015: the museum is renamed, according to the European heritage network.
Side by side
The museum’s home page includes a quotation praising the place as holding “more than 300 years of history”. Atlas Obscura puts the beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century, which is closer to 270 years. The quotation is a visitor’s remark rather than a research finding, and we mention it only to show how loosely such numbers travel.
What kind of sources these are
The museum website is the museum’s own account. Atlas Obscura is a travel guide, and this entry was published in 2016. The European heritage network is a membership body that lists sites. VisitElche is a tourism board, so its 42 per cent figure is promotional and undated. We found no statistics office, trade body or independent study for any figure here.
Questions a buyer would ask
Does a shoe from this region carry a protected name? None of the sources says so, and we do not claim it. What is a last, and why does it matter? The European heritage network says lasts are used to shape shoes, and the museum’s machinery room has a collection about making them. Can the figures be trusted for a purchase decision? No. They are history, and any price, size or construction question needs the maker.
What we left out
Prices, brand names, the professor’s name, living people whose shoes are displayed, ticket rules and hours, and the museum’s award for a living public figure. We also left out a sewing-machine history on the museum’s machinery page, because it gives a date for one inventor that is plainly wrong.
Quick answers
Where do Spanish shoes come from? Elda and Elche are the two towns these sources discuss. VisitElche says about 42 per cent of Spain’s shoes are made in Elche.
When did shoemaking industrialise in Elda? According to Atlas Obscura, cobbling began in the mid-1700s, and by the late 1800s there were factories with more than 400 workers.
What is a shoe last? According to the European Route of Industrial Heritage, lasts are used to shape shoes. The museum’s website says its machinery room shows how wooden lasts were made.
Roam first. Shop later.
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