Calder’s Western Wear has occupied the same storefront on Broadway since 1962. The building sold in 2019 for $420,000. The lease tripled last January.

Hank Calder, 71, still arrives at 6:30 a.m. to sweep sawdust from the boot counter. He measures inseams with a tape measure his father bought in 1958. Last month a man in a Patagonia vest asked if the shop could ship “heritage ranchwear” to a Slack channel in Austin.

“We’ve always made chaps for working cowboys,” Calder said. “Now we make them for guys who work in cloud infrastructure. The inseam is the same. The price is not.”

A pair of custom chaps starts at $1,800. The shop sold forty-seven pairs in July. Thirty-nine went to zip codes outside Montana. Calder’s granddaughter, Jess, manages the website from a folding table beside the saddle rack. She photographs each pair on a sawhorse against the original tin ceiling.

The shop still smells like leather conditioner and pipe tobacco. A laminated menu on the counter lists “Tech Founder Package: custom chaps, tooled belt, monogrammed cuffs, virtual fitting via Zoom — $3,200.” Calder does not know what Zoom is. He uses the landline at 406-555-0187.

The building next door sold in March for $1.2 million. A Denver developer plans a “live-work collective for digital creatives.” Calder watched them pour the foundation from his doorway. He did not comment on the architecture.

Jess ships a pair of $2,400 chaps to a venture capitalist in Boulder every Tuesday. The tracking numbers are written in pencil on a legal pad. Calder still fits every customer himself. He says the cloud infrastructure man had a 34-inch inseam and good posture for someone who sits all day.

The rent is due on the first. Calder pays it in cash.