Need some advice?
Contact Us! We are ready to help you have a positive shopping experience and find comfortable wide shoes that fit and work best for you and your budget.
Need some more information?
Check our About Fitting tab which gives you detailed information on our fitting process.
Check our About Ordering tab which gives detailed information about setting up your personal online account and how to place your orders for our wide width shoes.
Browse through our product pages. They give detailed descriptions about each shoe style. Our unique Fit Me option, only found at Hitchcock Shoes, lets our expert fitters help you in finding the best size for you in our shoes.
How do I know what size to order?
Our Hitchcock wide shoes are carefully graded, and we have decades of experience with other manufacturers’ sizing as well. Many people think that all we need is a foot tracing to determine size. But shoe fitting is more complicated than that. Your foot is three dimensional and your shoe size is, too. Many first-time customers, who come to us because the shoes they have been wearing are too narrow for them, think all they have to do is move up to a wider width, but because of the way shoe sizes are graded, you may need to adjust length as well. We suggest selecting the Fit Me option when you order, providing all the fitting information we ask for. Click on our About Fitting for more details on fitting, sizing and lasts.
Can I receive a catalog?
Yes! Click on our Get A Catalog tab. Complete the information to be added to our mailing list!
Can I try on your shoes in a store?
Hitchcock Shoes are available only through our website, catalog and showroom. They are not sold in stores, but we do have a showroom at our headquarters and warehouse in Hingham, MA. Contact Us for more details.
Our History
Since our founding in 1951, Hitchcock Shoes has specialized exclusively in wide footwear. Today, our men's and women’s range includes more than 600 wide and extra wide shoe styles (including orthopedic shoes) online and in our printed catalog. Our men’s wide shoes range in sizes from 5 to 24 in widths from 3E to 8E while our women’s wide shoes range in size from 5 to 13 in width from 2E to 8E.
Many of the wide shoes we offer are made especially for us in respected factories in the U.S.A. and overseas. We carry men’s dress shoes, casual styles and moccasins, athletic footwear, work boots and even slippers and sandals in EEE, EEEE, 5E, 6E and 8E widths made under our own Hitchcock men's wide shoes brand. We also stock extra wide shoes (a number of them Hitchcock Exclusives) by such famous makers as New Balance, Dunham, Propét, Hush Puppies, Florsheim, and Timberland, plus orthopedic shoes by Drew, Apex, Orthofeet, easyB and InStride.
In 2014, we put our wide shoe fitting expertise to work for women when we introduced Hitchcock Wide Shoe Closet for Women. We carry women’s dress, casual styles, flats, slip-ons, sneakers, orthopedic shoes and even slippers in extra wide widths. Featuring shoes we developed ourselves and others carefully selected for both fit and styling from leading manufacturers such as New Balance, Propet, Hush Puppies, Aravon, Apex, Drew, EasyB, Ros Hommerson, Cobb Hill and others, our Wide Shoe Closet styles combine Comfort, Character and Style. Whether you order online, by mail or phone, we offer you the widest selection of the widest shoes anywhere.
Who are you and how long have you been in business?
Hitchcock Shoes has been an independent, family-owned business since 1951. We are not associated with any other online retailer or catalog company and we are not a subsidiary of a larger company. We are wide shoe specialists with more than seven decades of experience fitting men to shoes in the widest widths available. We carry wide shoes for men and women. Hitchcock Wide Shoe Closet for Women, was introduced in fall of 2014 and is an online collection of wide ladies' styles in widths 2E through 8E carefully chosen for comfort and character. Many of the styles shown in our catalogs for both men and women are made especially for us in well-known factories in the U.S.A. and overseas.
How are you different from other online shoe companies?
Wide shoes aren't an "extra" part of our business; they are our only business. We keep individual records of our customers' buying histories and fitting preferences so we can help you when you place new orders. We pride ourselves on our personalized service and have many customers who have been buying their shoes exclusively from us for decades.
A family-owned American small business since 1951
Hitchcock Shoes was founded by Ethan W. Hitchcock in the fall of 1951 in the cellar of his home in Hingham, Massachusetts. A veteran of the New England shoe industry, Mr. Hitchcock noticed many men who, like himself, had served in World War II, were not able to find footwear in civilian life that fit as wide as the boots and shoes they had had in the military. To fill this need, Hitchcock produced his first catalog, offering 10 men’s wide styles. By 1956, Hitchcock Shoes was a thriving mail-order catalog business featuring 20 styles with 4,800 customers and mailings of 25,000 printed catalogs.
The 1960’s were a period of significant growth and changes at Hitchcock Shoes, with increased style offerings and an increased selection of wider widths. The company’s warehouse and offices moved to larger facilities at 165 Beal Street in Hingham, and it produced its first full color catalog in 1966. Following her husband’s death in 1967, Evelyn F. Hitchcock succeeded as president. Under her leadership, the business continued to grow, with the addition of Hitchcock’s first 6E-wide shoes and the development of new lasts and product lines. By the mid- 1970’s, Hitchcock Shoes had a mailing list of more than 150,000 customers with over 100 wide men’s styles available. Mrs. Hitchcock was succeeded by her son, Thomas Bright, as president in 1999 but she remained active in the company until she was 89 years old.
In addition to its Wide Shoe Closet for Women line, Hitchcock Shoes has recently added 8E width shoes for both men and women. The company continues to provide the widest selection of the widest good-looking, great fitting footwear available from any one source and prides itself on its individualized fitting services and high level of customer care, as reflected in its new website.