Now In: Colchester Rubber Co.
After a long wait, we have received a shipment from Colchester Rubber Co. and they are now available to purchase. Colchester has replicated the first design for a basketball sneaker, dating some 25 years before Converse.
In 1892, the original Colchester sneakers were developed in anticipation of the potential footwear demand genereated by the basketball phenomenon, which swept the country from its beginnings in Springfield, Massachusetts. Colchester Rubber Company, guided by George Watkinson, president and innovator of numerous athletic footwear designs, may very well be considered the first sneaker brand. The existence of the firm is little known, as it was absorbed into the Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Company, producers of Keds, beginning in 1916, and subsidiary of U.S. Rubber Company.
In 2004, a faded pair was found in a trunk at an estate sale, worn with age, but in good condition. This pair, found across a continent and more than a century in time from their original birth place, led to a detailed re-creation of the original 1892 model, inclduing a vulcanized rubber sole and cotton duck canvas for the upper.
