The Valley is a gold mine for deals on boots at outlet stores. The Olathe 252599 boots instantly became my favorite dress boots. This design extends everything I like in the Olathe design, and these even have pegged soles.
I also picked up Olathe 251952 boots in this haul. It satisfied my craving for more of the nice feeling of mule hide that I grew to like a lot from my first pair of Olathe 254217 boots. I was initially concerned with the nylon pull straps, but they turned out to be comfortably less abrasive than the stitching that you often find on leather. The heel is a different style than what works more naturally with my feet, but they broke in nicely and are my alternate boots for wearing into the office when the 252599's are resting.
I was oblivious that Anderson Bean ran the brand until I saw these Horse Power 1071 boots among all the Olathes, Rios, and ABs at the outlet. I always skip past all the AB square toes but these happen to be round toe, and have sturdy shafts that work well for working boots. They looked so nice that I kept them in the box a while to contemplate whether I really wanted to put them to work treading around in the mud. They have nice, pegged, leather soles so I finally decided to break them in by wearing these boots into the office for a week before getting them dirty. I think I made the right decision in the end because the vamp material is not that easy to keep clean for the ideal office look. Plus, the stiffer shafts are better for wearing around the ranch than all day at the office.