Photo: Fox 13 News
During the pandemic, Florida cobbler Jim McFarland began offering a peek into his workshop as he repaired and revived old, worn, and damaged shoes and leather goods. When his first video got over 2 million views in a week, he thought it was just luck. But within 90 days, the shop’s YouTube channel had over 100,000 subscribers. Now it has 1.3 million followers on TikTok and 666,000 on Instagram. The fourth-generation cobbler took over the business in 1986 when his dad became ill. His great uncle, Jacob High, had opened Jacob High Shoe Shop in Indiana in the early 1900s. His nephew, Lewis McFarland, passed it on to his son, James R. McFarland I, who moved to Florida in 1963. While the shoe repair industry has shrunk dramatically, McFarland is inspiring new cobblers via his social media.
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