I received a suggestion to research Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Wards kit houses being built in Ridgeway. These kit homes could be ordered from the company catalogs and included all the lumber, hardware and other materials needed to build a complete home. They were very popular in the early 1900s and were shipped by railroad to the buyer. I expected to find several advertisements in the paper for these homes but was very surprised to not to find any. In fact, in 1905, the Ridgeway Journal instituted a policy where they would no longer accept any advertising from either mail order company or from bigger department stores in other towns to protect the local businesses.
From 1900 to 1905, the Journal published at least one editorial per year warning residents about the dangers of buying mail order and how it hurt the local economy: “Of course, such establishments do not have to pay any great amount of taxes to support schools, build churches, build country roads, bridges and such things…The money goes to them all the time, but little gets away. We have never heard of them contributing to the poor and unfortunate, but it takes the cash all one way to reach them.”
Both Sears, Roebuck & Company and Montgomery Wards had advertised in the Ridgeway Journal (though never their kit homes), but on September 8, 1905, the Journal editor had this item on the front page: “The Journal has decided to discontinue outside advertising that will compete with the home trade... We will now try the plan of not advertising for any department store from the larger towns. This will give the home merchants a better chance to make their ads effective.” This included ads from Kansas City and St. Joseph as well as the mail order houses. Though both companies were mentioned in ads by local businesses as well as in regular news items, the Ridgeway Journal didn’t print any more ads by either of these companies for as long as the newspaper continued to be published.
I am still interested in kit homes built in Ridgeway, so if you know you have one or are interested in finding out if you do, please let me know. Send an email to ridgewaycba@gmail.com.
