Mr. Sears' kit homes

Zebulon Pike's adventures to the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, in 1806, have sometimes been compared to the Voyage of Discovery of Lewis and Clark. But Pike lacked the observation skills and the optimism of the earlier duo. He did the country he explored, which we now refer to as the High Plains region of America, a great disservice when he wrote, "those vast plains of the western hemisphere may become, in time, as celebrated as the sandy wastes of Africa". He sent a map of the area to President Jefferson, with the notation, "not a stick of timber in the entire area!"

The thousands of people who live in this area today disprove Pike's observation and prediction. Yet, when the first settlers arrived in Southwest Nebraska, they would probably have agreed with Pike's assessment, "not a stick of timber." Today, it is difficult to imagine that McCook, which has been acclaimed as a Tree City, was totally devoid of trees when the town was incorporated in 1882.

The Indians who inhabited the area at that time went many miles to secure poles for their tepees. The settlers, many of whom had come from Illinois and Kentucky and other states where forests of trees were commonplace, showed great adaptability when they made their first homes in little caves, dug out of creek banks. Later they used the prairie's sod to construct their homes. Even fuel for cooking and heat consisted mainly of tufts of prairie grass and the dried dung of cattle and buffalo.

Though there were a few "scrub trees" along the river and creek banks, good lumber for construction was simply not available in Southwest Nebraska. Mr. A. Barnett told of helping to unload the first shipment of lumber in McCook in 1882. Building lumber was a valuable commodity, and lumbermen were some of the first individuals -- in McCook, Palisade, and other area towns, to amass fortunes in the new area.

The lack of suitable building material, locally grown, went on for a long time. Material for new home construction was not only scarce, but it was expensive. As is usually the case when there is a need, someone comes along to fill that need, and in the process, make themselves a fortune. Enter Richard Warren Sears --

Richard Sears was born in Minnesota in 1863, the son of a successful blacksmith, who garnered a good sized fortune in stocks, but when Richard was finishing high school, the elder Sears lost that fortune in a stock market crash. Richard was forced to enter the work force, as a telegraph operator, rising to a station manager for the Minneapolis-St. Louis Railroad. In this capacity he took advantage of a mix-up, which proved to be a stepping stone to a fortune of his own.

In the late 1800s a popular scam was for a manufacturer to send out a shipment of his product to a dealer -- a shipment which had not been ordered by the dealer. The manufacturer would then hopefully negotiate a bargain price with the dealer, so that he would accept the shipment. A dealer in Sear's town flatly refused to take the unwanted merchandise. Sears, as railroad agent, was in the middle of the controversy. Eventually he agreed to buy the merchandise (gold-filled pocket watches) for his own use.

It was then that Sears showed his flare for merchandising. He enlisted other station agents to sell the watches (a prestige item) to railroad passengers and farmers in their area. Then Sears began to place clever ads in area papers, promoting the watches. Immediately, Sears found himself in the business of selling products via the U.S. Mail.

In 1887 Sears moved the R.W. Sears Watch Co. to Chicago, and, in 1893, with watchmaker, Alvah Curtis Roebuck formed a new company, Sears-Roebuck Co.

(Note: Alvah Roebuck was put in charge of the watches division of the business, gradually adding jewelry, optical goods, phonographs, and motion picture machines.)

Even though Roebuck's name was part of one of the most famous partnerships in the world, Sears and Roebuck did not get along all that well together. After only two years Roebuck asked Sears to buy him out for $20,000. Sears agreed. In 1914 he was asked about Mr. Sear's great wealth, compared to his modest means. His reply, "He's dead. Me, I never felt better!"

After Roebuck left, Sears then sold a quarter interest in his company to Aaron Nusbaum for $37,500. Six years later he bought out Nusbaum's interest for $1.25 million!

Roebuck went on to become President of the Emerson Typewriter Co., where he invented the Woodstock machine, an improved typewriter model. He was badly hurt in the stock market crash in 1929, and returned to Sears in 1933, to write a history of the company he helped found, and later became a front man for the company he helped found, promoting Sears-Roebuck at stores across the country, until his death in 1948.)

By 1897 the company was offering its many products for mail-order via the Sears-Roebuck catalogue -- and was changing the way America did business.

The kit home concept came at an opportune time. By the advent of the 20th century, the Sears and Roebuck catalogue had become one of the most popular books in the country -- America's Wish Book, offering rural America affordable prices on the latest fashions, the latest in technology -- on products that often were not available in the local stores. What is more, these products could be delivered quickly, to virtually any part of America, thanks to the rapid expansion of the railroads across America. Chicago, the hub of the railway network was an ideal place for the Sears/Roebuck home office.

In 1906, Sears and Roebuck offered thousands of products for sale, including lumber and building supplies -- which were not selling well, and were unprofitable. Mr. Sears was considering discontinuing that line from the catalogue, when Frank Kushel, of the china department suggested selling the lumber as house kits, which could be easily shipped via rail box cars. Sears liked the idea and gave the green light to the project.

By 1908 Sears-Roebuck was offering some 22 models of quality homes, ranging in price from $550-$2,500 ($14,388-$59,187 in 2008 dollars), saving the homeowner about 30 percent on the cost of a home built the conventional way. The average home consisted of more than 30,000 parts, weighing some 25 tons, including electrical or gas light fixtures. Plumbing and heating fixtures were purchased separately.

Between 1908 and 1940, when Sears-Roebuck discontinued selling kit homes, some 75,000 homes were sold to Americans in all sections of the country, not counting cabins, garages, sheds, and store buildings, which were also sold in kit form. This represented an investment of millions of dollars for the home owner, much of which was financed by a banking division of the Sears-Roebuck company.

R.W. Sears retired to his farm north of Chicago in 1908. Neither he nor his wife was in good health and the allure of business was no longer "fun." He died in 1914, at the age of 50, having turned a $50 investment in pocket watches into a multi-million dollar merchandising empire. He left an estate of over $25 million to his wife and children.

Source: The Amazing Mr. Sears, in Old House Web.

Note: If you think you might have a Sears Kit home, you can obtain clues at "How to identify a Sears kit home" at Wikihow.com