06/03/2026
The Wenatchee World, May 2, 1996
BUSINESS
New shoe shop owner walks into a legacy
By STEPHEN MAHER
World business writer
WENATCHEE — The way Jim Parker looks at it, Wenatchee has always been a good shoe-repair town.
That's the way his grandfather saw it, too, when he started the American Shoe Shop in 1920.
That's the way his father saw it when he operated the same business 20 years later. And that's the way Parker's employee, Josh Tarr, hopes he'll end up viewing it as well.
Parker and his wife, Joanne, owners of the American Shoe Shop, are selling the family-owned business to 22-year-old Tarr, effective June 1. The business is at 118 N. Wenatchee Ave., across from the Wenatchee Center.
"People who know me, who know I have just two daughters, think he (Tarr) is my son," said Parker, who will work part time for Tarr at least through the end of the year.
"We think he can handle it." Tarr said he's up to the task.
First off, he plans no major changes.
"I've been taught some very, very important lessons by the Parkers," Tarr said. "Part of it (the attraction to buying the business) is job security. Part of it is taking over a business that is so well established.
"There's never been a day where I've dreaded coming to work," he said.
"There is always something new."
The shoe shop was established 76 years ago by Parker's grandfather, Harry Crutcher, in a wooden building at the corner of Mission and Palouse streets (where Whitebird Construction Co. is located today.) Crutcher and his family, including Parker's mother, lived in the back of the building.
At the time, there were four other shoe repair businesses in Wenatchee.
Crutcher had learned the trade while in the Navy. A Texas native, he had moved to Wenatchee in about 1919.
In 1940. Parker's father, Al Parker, took it over. By then the business had moved to 110 Orondo St. It later relocated to 114 Orondo St. In December 1965, the shop moved to its current location on North Wenatchee Ave. Jim Parker officially became owner in 1970.
A walk around the shop today reveals a touch of the old along with the new: The original counter from the American Shoe Shop's first location,
an antique Singer sewing machine, old photos and chairs.
Tarr literally walked onto the scene five years ago, after moving to Wenatchee from the Seattle area to attend Wenatchee Valley College. While on the west side of the mountains, he was employed by a shoe business in Issaquah's Gilman Village and worked on Birkenstocks.
"I noticed they sold Birkenstocks," Tarr said of his decision to walk in off the street and talk to the Parkers. "So I
came in that day and told them what I could do. I told them, 'I know how to repair Birkenstocks, and I'm looking for a job."'
Added Parker, "He just stumbled in here one day. That's how it was."
Two weeks later, after calling on the Parkers again, he was hired.
It's been like a parent-son relationship since. The Parkers are turning over the business to Tarr at an opportune time. Over the past 10 years, both shoe repair sales and retail shoe sales have in-creased. The biggest change has been growth in retail. At one time, shoe repair made up 100 percent of sales for the business. Today it makes up about 30 percent.
"It's just that retail is so much more,
Parker said.
"We've picked up lines that sell. Our Birkenstocks have really been good to us."
But that doesn't mean American Shoe Shop is giving up on the repair side of things. At Tarr's insistence several years ago, the Wenatchee shop became one of just 11 wholesale certified Birkenstock repair locations in the United States.
"It's not that shoe repair has died. Our shoe repair is up, Parker said.
"And Wenatchee as I mentioned earlier, has always been a good shoe-repair town.”
