Robert Backes stitches together a belt inside his shop BobLarry Custom Leather located at 306 Main Street in downtown Dysart. Backes took possession of the building which once housed the Winding Stair Wind office this past November. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

DYSART – Leatherworking has taken Robert Backes far in life and now with the opening of his new shop, it has also taken him to Tama County in downtown Dysart.

Backes’ business BobLarry Custom Leather – aptly named using the nickname his older sisters teased him with when he was a kid (Backes’ middle name is Lawrence) – took up residence this past November inside the building located at 306 Main Street after spending more than a decade in Vinton in Benton County.

“I had a very small space in Vinton,” Backes, 45, explained while working on a belt for his aunt inside the new shop a few days before Christmas. “This is seven times more space – that’s why I wanted to come over here.”

Backes purchased the building from Brian Parr, also of Vinton. The space was previously used by Apex Clean Energy for its Winding Stair Wind project.

While the shop is new to Dysart, Backes’ leather products have had a fierce online following for some time, particularly among the biker crowd.

The storefront of Robert Backes’ downtown Dysart business BobLarry Custom Leather illuminated at night. While the business currently does not have any set hours, Backes welcomes patrons (and curious visitors!) anytime the lights are on inside the space which houses both his storefront and workshop. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“I just started doing leatherwork because I wanted to make me and my dad a belt. And then everybody wanted a belt,” Backes explained of his business’s roots.

Shortly thereafter, Backes said he decided he wanted to own a Harley. To fund such a pricey purchase he started making leather motorcycle seats and other custom bike accessories. His business – like his eventual new motorcycle – effectively took off after that.

While he works a day job at AP Castings in Brandon, Backes spends most of his weeknights at the Dysart shop making all sorts of leather goods from belts and bracelets to guitar straps and wallets.

A good portion of those products end up for sale at Midwest Leather Factory in Amana, Iowa, with which he has had a contract for about a year.

Backes briefly went full time as a leatherworker not too long ago, he said, but the need for medical insurance put him back on the 9-5 at the Brandon foundary.

Leatherworker Robert Backes pictured inside his shop BobLarry Custom Leather which recently opened in downtown Dysart. Backes sells belts, wallets, and other finely crafted leather goods through his storefront as well as online and at Amana’s Midwest Leather Factory. The business was previously based in Vinton. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

In what spare time he can cultivate, Backes plays guitar and writes music for the “funky outlaw country band” Doc Johnson & American Made. He’s also got an important job being dad to his 16-year-old son Keegan who also has a work space at the Dysart shop.

It’s safe to say Backes’ days (and evenings) are fairly full but it wasn’t always like this. When asked how he learned leatherworking, Backes, sporting a bushy beard, mostly black attire, and a peculiar tattoo of the numbers 1119959 across his right forearm, doesn’t waver one bit in his response.

“I don’t want to freak you out, but I learned it in prison.”

The numbers tattooed on his arm were his Iowa offender number while incarcerated.

Released in 2005, Backes spent some seven-and-a-half years in prison for a Class C felony conviction, he explained, passing through three different Iowa institutions including the minimum security North Central Correctional Facility located in Rockwell City.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“Rockwell City was where I started doing [leatherworking]. There were a lot of people [from the 1970s] with life sentences there and a lot of those guys did leatherwork.”

While imprisoned Backes also learned metalworking, how to play the guitar, earned his GED diploma and a college degree, while also becoming a Master Gardener.

“I am a supporter of inmates and people knowing that they’re not horrible people,” Backes continued before later adding of his time spent in prison, “It was a really good experience. I would be dead otherwise.”

Prior to prison, Backes said he didn’t harbor any real aspirations for his life.

“I don’t know if I ever really tried to do anything before [prison]. Prison really opened me up to trying things.”

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

Today, Backes said he gravitates toward creative problem-solving – much of his work at BobLarry Custom Leather involves creating custom items for which he has no blueprint.

“I’m really busy. And I’m working on getting stuff out here [in the shop].”

Backes said he is also hoping to become more involved with the downtown Dysart business community including holding an open house in the spring.

“I would like to be more active with the community. Everybody’s really supportive here [in Dysart]. They’re all encouraging me.”

While the business currently has no set hours, Backes welcomes visitors and patrons to the shop.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“If the lights are on, come on in.”

BobLarry Custom Leather is located at 306 Main Street in downtown Dysart. For more information, refer to the business’s Facebook page or website: https://www.boblarry.com.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER