Posted on 05/17/2016 12:12:08 PM PDT by PROCON
Yes, my grandparents built their family home that was ordered from Sears around 1920. The materials were delivered by train from Chicago to Ohio, and brought out to the site in a horse-drawn wagon.
[[The failure of vision that led to the current state of Sears, rather than leveraging their vast catalog operations to become what Amazon has become instead, is a sad thing to ponder. They had practically all they needed, already in place. ]]
Buying Kmart was one of their bad visions.
We live in one. Built in 1904. Shipped by rail to town,then built by a local carpenter.
Cool!
If you decided you wanted some minor modification such as, say, a bay window, there were smaller kits which would be shipped by parcel post.
The post office was a logistical marvel in those days. You could post a letter in Maine and it would typically arrive at a destination in California three days later, maybe four if it was too far off a main rail line. Trains plied the tracks 24/7 and ran on time. Many of these trains included a postal rail car which had a crew sorting mail en route. Bags were coded according to station and direction and could be picked up and dropped off with a special hook and pulley arrangement even if the train didn't make a stop at that particular station.
Sorting errors were rare and were usually caught by the destination station master and rerouted before the postal patron even noticed a delay in delivery.
Was it held together with rivets?
The rest is history.
They saw big box discount retail as the future and were not entirely wrong, but never did quite turn Kmart around to be a strong competitor to Walmart.
Back then, a Sears home was a reasonably-priced alternative to stick-built, and pretty good quality too. Nowadays, a “modular” home is either going to be a bare step above a trailer, or a trendy upscale building that generally costs more than a comparable stick home. I wish I could still get a modest-priced, but good-quality house sent in on a trailer and put up on my own plot.
Sears used to sell ponies ( I think), chickens, eggs for hatching and bees. I lived for a while in a Sears house in South Carolina. It was remarkably solid and used space wisely. Almost no wasted hallways. Oak wood floors, dining room ,living room, some neat features. There was however almost no closet space. Wardrobes were the standard. I believe the date of the house was 1912. My am I getting old...
At one time, Sears sold cars too.
Google the Allstate..
Does anyone know the name of the style of that era, the one in the OP’s pic? There are some older areas of Fort Worth with homes like that. I like that style.
One thing they had "already in place" was the catalogue. Its demensions were just a little smaller than the Monkey Ward catalogue. That way, when they were stacked on the end table or on a shelf, the Sears book was always on top. Pure genius.
Bookmark
The brickwork on that home is marvelous and I’ve seen that style up here in the Pacific Northwest too.
The style of house being built by the dozens in the photo at the link you provided is known as a Foursquare, because the house is essentially square and there are four rooms on each floor.
The OP’s color photo of a brick house is typically referred to as an English Cottage, but larger more elaborate examples might be called a Tudor.
Buying Kmart was one of their bad visions.
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K-Mart bought Sears.
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