Bit of History - June 16, 2021

For this week, I have a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1914.  It covers from Main Street to 1^st 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.

Bit of History - March 24, 2021

Did you know that when the town of Ridgeway was first laid out, Walnut Street ran all the way to Third Street?  Today, it stops at Second Street and the final block is private property.  I have found old plat maps of Grant Township and Ridgeway from 1876, 1898 and 1917 when browsing around the digital maps section of the State Historical Society of Missouri.  The plat maps for both 1898 and 1917 both show that Walnut did run from Second to Third, but it seems to have been vacated sometime after the last plat map that I found.  I would love to know if anyone has any other information about this.

City of Ridgeway, Missouri Plat Map, 1917

Thanks to Proposition 2, my curiosity got the better of me about the Ridgeway School fire and the history of the current gym. I started digging around in Newspapers.com and I found several articles covering the fire and all that came afterward.  Seems that someone at the Kansas City Star was very interested in this little community and followed the story through to the opening of the new school.  I will share more of this story next week – it is truly heartwarming how the people of this town worked together to provide for the students. 

Editor's Note:  In 2021, the voters residing in the Ridgeway R-V school district voted on Proposition 2 asking them to decide if the school district should use bond money to build a new school gym.  The old field house, formerly a military warehouse deconstructed and moved to Ridgeway and rebuilt by volunteers, was in great need of costly repairs.  The proposition did not pass, but the administrators were able to secure enough donations and grants to get the new gym built.  It was completed in 2022 and students and community members alike are currently enjoying it.