Boots, shoes, belts and clothes. These and many more uses for leather date to prehistoric man, approximately 20,000 BC. But the Leather Research Institute at Texas Tech University is not satisfied with a history lesson.

The LRI was established in 1989 at TTU. The institute’s mission is to provide research, education and services directed at expanding the leather tanning and finished products industry in Texas and the United States. The LRI’s fundamental purpose is to serve as a catalyst for industry expansion through research and dissemination of information to build a stronger domestic market for skins and to promote the domestic manufacturing of leather products.

The LRI is funded as a line-item institution through the TTU College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. In addition to the CASNR funding, institute members compete for external funding along with other faculty. In 1999, Dr. Dennis Shelly, institute director and associate professor of chemistry at TTU, successfully received funding from the state of Texas.

The LRI was originally housed in the College of Human Sciences but was moved to the College of Arts and Sciences in 1998. The institute works with researchers in various academic departments at TTU to gain insight into the industry.

Dr. Terry Ervin, an agricultural economist in the department of agricultural and applied economics, is currently the associate director of the LRI. When Ervin began his work at the institute, he was given a goal: How can the industry produce the highest quality hides possible?

Since then, Ervin and his colleagues at the LRI have researched several issues effecting the leather industry. One such issue is the economic feasibility of using an alternative cattle identification system to decrease hide damage. Research involved cattle in Texas and New Mexico.

One of the most common and most hide-damaging forms of cattle identification is branding. According to the institute’s research, a premium of $1.72 per hundredweight is paid for cattle with non-branded hides. However, many states, banks and other lending institutions require cattle to be branded to prevent theft. To satisfy the identification requirements, the cattle producer and the industry’s need for quality hides, LRI researchers are working to make the use of a combination ID system of ear tags and microchips placed under the hide economically feasible.

The research in this area found the premium paid for cattle with native hides should be sufficient enough to motivate some producers to adopt alternative identification practices. With the advancements in technology and the support of producers, the possibility for higher hide quality is in the near future.

"It’s not just about the cows anymore," Ervin said. "Once we produce the best hides, the challenge isn’t over."

Research at the LRI ranges from issues of hide quality to futurist focuses of chemical warfare. With the hides being the number one by-product, the LRI is always looking for the continuing uses of hides.

The institute will not only benefit the leather industry, but TTU as well.

"The industry and the public will see that Texas Tech is doing research about something that is dear to them," Ervin said.

The LRI is working to develop grant proposals which, if accepted and awarded, lead to greater recognition for the institute and the university. Along with the industrial and academic benefits, the LRI is advantageous to the city of Lubbock. The institute has proposed to help establish a leather product testing facility and a crust leather plant, or tanning facility, as part of Lubbock’s economic development strategy.

Crusted leather is an intermediate tanned product that has been fat liquored. According to Ervin, this is the stage between the wet blue and finished leather stages. At the crusted leather stage, the ultimate use of the leather has not been determined. The next stage is to determine the final use of the material and apply the appropriate tannage to produce the desired result.

Though the testing and tanning facilities are still in the planning stages, without additional funding these plans will not materialize.

Leather use is dated by Biblical scholars as early as the third chapter of Genesis, and ancient Arabs were prolific in their leather-working skills. But the LRI and TTU are writing a new page in history… or is it a page in the future?