Inside a new factory near Louisville, Kentucky, bright orange robots will soon begin carefully loading boot parts into a machine that adds soles.

It’s one step in the highly automated process of making a Keen work boot—and an illustration of what it looks like now to bring factories back to the United States.

Keen, which is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, started planning the new factory last year, long before current tariffs were in place. And the company, unlike the majority of shoe brands, had already been manufacturing some shoes in Portland for more than a decade.

The Portland factory is now closing as the company prepares to open the larger factory in Kentucky next month. When it first started operations in Oregon in 2010, the business world was skeptical. “Many people told us that [making shoes] could not be done in the U.S., primarily because of some of the cost factors,” says Hari Perumal, Keen’s chief operating officer.

The company wanted to be closer to its American market, so it looked for a solution. Labor was the biggest challenge. “Footwear is a very........

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