Wilmington Bootstrap Factory Shutters Permanently

By Drew  |  EIC, Trouble Maker, Novice Juggler

WILMINGTON, DE - Delaware's legendary Bootstrap Factory — the historic cornerstone of the state's “just try harder” economy — has officially shuttered operations after 84 tireless years of manufacturing the nation’s most trusted tools for personal moral uplift and the glorification of capitalism

Company spokesman Grant Fairweather III — heir to the Fairweather Maritime Fortune and noted polo enthusiast — expressed sorrow at the closing:

> “The tariffs on raw bootstrap ore from Argentina have crushed us. We simply can’t afford to extract bootstrap minerals, refine them, braid them, and package them with inspirational slogans anymore. America just doesn’t appreciate artisanal self-sufficiency like it used to.”

For decades, the factory thrived under the ownership of DuPont affiliates, venture capital firms, and three separate private equity groups who each insisted they were “saving American manufacturing” while quietly routing profits through Delaware’s corporate registry vortex, where tax liability goes to die.

But the real problem, Fairweather insists, is cultural:

> “We’ve spent years making bootstraps strong enough that even poors and working singles could hypothetically yank themselves skyward. Unfortunately, since nobody wants to work anymore, nobody’s buying them. If people won’t help themselves, how can we help them help themselves?”

With production halted, the company will now move its machinery to a cheaper facility in Mexico, where workers are reportedly eager to pull themselves up by bootstraps — mostly because they live in a system where bootstraps actually lead to measurable improvement.

Local officials in Wilmington expressed mixed feelings:

> “We’re sad to lose these jobs,” said one council member, “but realistically, most of them paid so little that employees couldn’t afford shoes, much less boots.”

Some longtime employees gathered outside the locked gates, staring at the empty facility and the dangling CLOSED FOREVER sign.

Many reportedly whispered the same thing:

> “I pulled and pulled… and all I got was a hernia., some back pain and those irritating motivational posters all over the break room.”

Meanwhile, DuPont — which allegedly owned 12% of the corporation through four shell companies and a smiling lawyer in a very nice suit — issued a statement reading simply:

> “The free market has spoken.”

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Boardwalk Barker is a satirical publication. The stories and quotes herein are works of humor and parody.