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For the Denver 'Shoe Doctor,' it's all about saving soles

For the owner of this shoe repair shop along 17th Street in downtown Denver, tradition has run alongside his love of soles during his decades in business.
Credit: Darren Rode
Patrick Carlisle and his employee look over old stitching and grinding equipment used to repair shoes.

DENVER — In the constantly moving, constantly changing downtown Denver, there is a place that denies time exudes the old values of owner Patrick Carlisle.

"I've grown up in the business, father, grandfather, father before his -- all shoe repairman," Carlisle said.

He owns a shop on 17th Street called Cobbler's Corner. For more than 40 years, Carlisle has been honing his craft the same way, every day.

"It hasn't changed," Carlisle said. "I mean the machines that I work on still look the same from 40, 50 years ago."

Carlisle doesn't just help the regular walk-in customer. He has a reputation.

"Wife gets mad cause I remember nothing she tells me, but I can remember every shoe I touched," Carlisle said.

Jill Carlisle does not necessarily find that funny.

"He's Irish. I'm Irish-Italian, so we have a passionate relationship," she said.

But Jill Carlisle agreed that her husband's reputation draws in celebrities and people all over the world looking for help to fix their shoes.

"Every Broadway show that comes through town, I've touched those shoes, from Carol Channing to Sally Struthers," Patrick Carlisle said.

He is known in the trade as "The Shoe Doctor".

"I guess the theater kinda started calling me that because of the stuff they would bring in would be completely shot," he explained.

But through experience and feel, Patrick Carlisle believes he can fix almost anything.

"It's an art. It's a flow," he said.

It is a steady living in a dying trade.

"They're disappearing, unfortunately, but we need to keep them around," said Doug McKinnon, one of Patrick Carlisle's customers. "It's a local business and a great business."

Jill Carlisle said her husband is a part of a dying breed.

"I think what makes Patrick rare - his story, kind of rare, it's falling away," she said.

In a constantly moving, constantly changing world, one constant remains -- The Shoe Doctor who works more like a "Shoe Pastor".

"Been saving soles for a living my whole life," he said.

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