BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 28, 2023
Bud Simpson got riled up when he saw an ad for the rubber-soled, leather Barker hunting shoe in a 1904 edition of In the Maine Woods magazine. The 88-year-old former shoemaker, who was born in Brewer, remembered claims that L.L. Bean has made over the years that its founder, Leon Leonwood Bean, created a boot “built of ingenuity.” That boot is now one of the world’s most storied brands and the legend of its discovery has lived on. But Bean boots were first marketed in 1912, after similar boots appeared in magazines and catalogs, Simpson found. He became irritated at what he saw as exaggerated advertising by the Maine company, and recently self-published his own book about it, “Mr. Bean’s Boot.”