Fiction Mar 01 1996 When We Were Wolves An Oregon boot was a heavy iron cuff with an iron brace that ran down your ankle and under your arch. The idea of course was to discourage migration. It was invented by some crackpot warden at Salem with too much free time on his hands. We had Oregon boots in Wyoming in 1949, and walking in them was like walking across the exercise yard in ice skates. We did that too.