115 years after Win Brown opened a nine-foot storefront in Shenandoah, Iowa, we’re still doing what he started: showing up for our neighbors. Now, we can do it anywhere.
-Brown’s Shoe Fit Co.
Local Anywhere
For more than a century, Brown’s Shoe Fit has grown one community at a time. Today, our 73 locally owned and operated stores are woven into their hometowns through Local Loop, our in-store community partnership program. Through Local Loop, our store teams partner with the businesses, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and organizations that make their communities what they are. The name Local Loop started with a single hospital partnership in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and today it shows up as work boot accounts, hospital pop-ups, school shoe programs, and sponsorships across every Brown’s community.
Previous iterations of Local Loop have always had one limitation: they only reach the towns where we have a store. That’s why we created Local Anywhere, the online equivalent of Local Loop. With the addition of brownsshoefitco.com, we’re able to offer strangers half a world away the same expertise and care our store teams give their neighbors every day.
Now, no matter where you live or what community you’re part of, you can:
- shop the inventories of all 73 Brown’s Shoe Fit locations online
- buy online and pick up in-store when your local Brown’s has it in stock
- join the Local Loop and explore a partnership for your business or organization
- become part of the Brown’s community through Local Anywhere, even if there’s no store nearby
“We want to be the company people trust even if we don’t have a store in your area or even your state.”
— Mark Toms, eCommerce Manager, Brown’s Shoe Fit Co.
Win Brown believed every person deserved the opportunity to own and operate their own business. We believe every community deserves a great local shoe store. Wherever you are, we’d love to be yours.
Interested?
Real Opportunities For Real People
At Brown’s Shoe Fit, we know shoes, but we also know people. Our stores are owned and operated by everyday people with lives and families just like yours. Click the videos below to hear from several of our owner/operators on their own experiences with Brown’s Shoe Fit and why they joined the shoe business. They just might inspire you to join it too!
Our Roots
Win Brown came to the small Southwestern Iowa community of Shenandoah in 1909, where he worked for two years at the Andrews Dry Goods Company as a window trimmer and show card artist. One day he was reading the Dry Goods Economist magazine about a man from back East who had opened a shoe store in a four-foot wide abandoned stairway and was doing quite well.
In the summer of 1911, a 9 foot wide front space became available for rent next to Shenandoah’s Security State Bank, and Mr. Brown started his first shoe store with $1,700 in operating capital.
Mr. Brown worked diligently at the shoe store during the day and at night he would pack up a stock of shoes and call door to door to the country folks around the area.
Mr. Brown’s hard work paid off, and by the first of February in 1913, Mr. Brown’s net worth was $6,000.
When his three-year lease expired next to Security State Bank, he moved his store to 611 West Sheridan Avenue, where the Shenandoah store is still located today.
Mr. Brown’s shoe business grew by sharing his own hard work and capital.
He believed that any person should have an opportunity to own and operate their own business.
When he recognized that someone deserved an opportunity, he would make them a partner and loan them the necessary money to get started in the retail shoe business.
Today, Brown’s Shoe Fit Company is owned by Brown’s management and has stores in 12 midwestern states. These stores feature the very finest in quality, comfortable footwear. After over 100 years, Brown’s Shoe Fit Co. operates with the same philosophies and principles that Mr. Brown initiated decades ago.
Finding The Right Fit
Brown’s Shoe Fit offers self-driven individuals this same opportunity today that Win Brown offered in the 1930’s; to manage their own store upon successful completion of the training program.
Every manager becomes a vested partner in Brown’s Shoe Fit, owning a share of their own store, and earning the opportunity to invest in more of the 73 Brown’s Shoe Fit Locations currently scattered across twelve states.
Interested? Learn More Already convinced? Apply Here
