For this week, I have a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1914. It covers from Main Street to 1st Street (noted as Wood on the map) and from Walnut almost to Poplar, though Cedar is listed as Poplar in error. The interesting thing about this map is it shows construction materials such has brick or wood frame, and other features useful to writing fire insurance policies. Many of the stores had warehouses that faced an alley, and several buildings housed a gasoline-powered generator and gas storage tank to supplement the electricity provided to the town by the big gasoline generator across the railroad tracks.
Some of the buildings from that time still stand, though they have different uses now than they did then. The old Lions Club building, for example, was a store selling “general merchandise”. The original bandstand and town pump stood in front of it. The small brick building on the southwest corner of Main and Pine was a telephone exchange. The current bandstand sits on a lot occupied by a piano store in 1914 and City Hall occupies a lot that was a barber shop. The former First Missouri Bank building was a bank then too, with the post office just west of it. Where the old City Hall now sits was a furniture store. Papa’s Place restaurant was an office and across the street were two farming implements stores. The New Ridgeway Hotel was still in the planning stages and the three lots where the hotel now sits were empty.
In addition to these, the town had two more barber shops, two lumber yards, three hardware stores, two grocery stores, two drug stores, two lodge halls, a printer, a garage, a tailor and a milliner, a moving picture house, two ice houses, an ice cream shop and two restaurants and a bakery and much more. How did they pack all that into just three blocks? Most of our buildings today take up two or more lots but then they built one per lot and many had second floors to allow for multiple businesses. Ridgeway did not have a fire department, however, which is noted on the map.
Click here to see the Sanborn Fire Insurance map for Ridgeway in 1914.
