William A. Boots was born in New Castle, Delaware, the son of a wealthy farmer.  As a boy his family vacationed in Montana, and as is often the case of children who experience the Rocky Mountains, he longed to return for the rest of his childhood.

Boots trained as a druggist and lived out his early life in Delaware.  At age 30 he was joined in marriage with Laura Waterman. Ms. Waterman was apparently amenable to frontier life, for the Boots family immediately moved west to Iowa.  They settled in a small town called Avoca, 30 miles northeast of Council Bluffs, where William set up a pharmacy.

Soon the call of the Rockies again pulled Boots west.  In 1881 William and Laura, along with their newborn baby Darwin Robert, packed up their belongings and boarded a steamer for the Yellowstone River and Montana.  They landed in the newly formed town Coulson. Coulson was expected to become the largest railroad hub in Montana, and therefore was attracting speculators of all kinds.  

Boots called on his experience on the family farm in Delaware and bought some ranchland and milk cows.  He began a friendship with fellow ranchers Thomas and George Ash. The Ash Brothers were about the same age as Boots and were also German born Americans who grew up in the Tidewater area.  The brothers had just opened the Rocky Mountain Brewery just outside of town and it is likely that the brewers' craft of mixing chemicals to opiate effects made Boots long for his old practice in the Pharmacy.

In 1882 the promised railroad hub in Coulson was axed because of land disputes and the railroads literally built the town of Billings to satisfy their needs.  The population of Coulson left for the now booming Billings.  

In addition to brewing, the Ash brothers were landowners, ranchers, and had a stake in a producing mine in the mountains.  On April 14th 1883 George Ash traded his partnership in the brewery to William Boots in exchange for 70 head of cattle. Boots continued the brewery to dwindling effect in the shrinking town.  The last mention of his brewery was in January of 1887, when it was reported in the Billings Gazette that its brewmaster, Charles H. Grosse, had died. It is unknown whether the brewery ever produced again. 

William Boots then moved his family to Great Falls, where he resumed the occupation of pharmacist.  He managed his drug store right up until the day he died on August 25th 1916. He was 72 years of age.