By Charles Pederson
Online ordering, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, has become a feature of U.S. life. Click a computer mouse or poke your phone with a finger, and voilà: a box arrives at your door. But even long before the Internet Age, in the first half of the 1900s, home delivery was available, though you had to use a paper catalog rather than a computer.
The best-known mail-order company was Sears, Roebuck and Co. Famous for its eagerly awaited annual catalog, Sears offered seemingly everything a household might need: toys, farm equipment, clothing, medicines, and more. The most dramatic order from the catalog, however, might have been a mail-order kit for an entire ready-cut house.
The Sears catalog spurred consumers’ Christmas wishes for a wide variety of goods. Sears Roebuck & Co. Consumers Guide, Fall 1900, Scott County Historical Society.
Notes on Mail-Order Homes
Sears Modern Homes—the branch of Sears that offered ready-cut homes—was perhaps the largest, but not the only, source for mail-order homes. Wardway Homes (Montgomery Ward), Aladdin, Harris Brothers, and others supplied kits for homeowners. These homes were found all over the United States and parts of Canada. Minnesota, and Scott County, too have their share.
In a 1919 congressional hearing, the manager of the Sears Lumber Department defined a kit house as “a permanent house and the method of its construction is not different from any other frame house where the lumber is framed (or cut to its proper length, notched, etc.), by hand by carpenters.” Rebecca Hunter, a respected researcher of mail-order homes, said, “The buyer received all the materials from one source: lumber, roofing, doors and windows, flooring, trim boards, hardware, nails, and enough paint and varnish to put 2 coats on everything. Electric, plumbing and heating fixtures were NOT provided as part of the house, but were available at extra cost. . . . Most buyers ordered from the closest supplier, as the buyer paid the freight charges.”
Mail-order homes were produced between 1906 and 1946. Between 1908 and 1942, Sears alone sold about 70,000 mail-order homes. Sears, however, was not the first manufacturer, waiting until 1915 to begin offering its own line of mail-order houses.
These days, finding, cataloging, and restoring such mail-order kit homes is popular. Entire books, websites, clubs, and Facebook pages are dedicated to this fascinating piece of little-known U.S. history.
The Appeal of Mail-Order Homes
Mail-order homes tempted homeowners for a variety of reasons. The “already-cut” part of mail-order homes was a major appeal for people who wanted a home of their own. A house kit could have as many as 30,000 separate pieces, each numbered and bundled with like pieces, accompanied by a handbook with instructions. Typically, the pieces could fill a couple of train cars, a significant part of a barge or a ship’s cargo hold, or a large truck trailer. The homeowner who ordered was responsible for the load reaching the construction site. The pieces were delivered from the manufacturer, often to a train depot or warehouse near the site. A home-building professional could be hired to assemble a home, or if the homeowners were handy, they could construct it themselves.
Mail-order homes came with an instruction book to guide builders through structure assembly, from beginning to end. Courtesy of Internet Archive.
Innovation and mass production of building materials allowed for a significant reduction in construction time. The Sears Archive noted that “precut and fitted materials [shrank] construction time up to 40%,” as did use of interior drywall and exterior asphalt shingles. Drywall—also called plasterboard or wallboard—was a new building material that widely replaced plaster-and-lath starting in the early 1900s. Asphalt shingles, introduced also in the early 1900s, replaced slate tiles or other roofing materials, with constant improvements throughout the 20th century.
By far the most relevant factor for ordering a kit home was price, although even here, prices varied, from several hundred to many thousands of dollars. The 1912 Sears catalog said of Sears model No. 167 (the Maytown), priced at $753: “By allowing a fair price for labor, cement, brick, and plaster, which we do not furnish, this house can be built for about $1,573.00, including all material and labor.” Researcher Hunter added, “Manufacturers claimed the pre-cut system would save the builder up to 30% compared to the cost of standard building methods.”
Properly sorted and stacked, the precut building elements of a mail-order home could be more easily erected on an existing foundation. Courtesy of Internet Archive.
Mail-Order Homes in Scott County
According to information from the Kit Homes Facebook group and the Lydia Area Historical Society, at least four mail-order homes have been located in Scott County. Two are confirmed Sears Modern Homes: one in Jordan, along the west edge of the county, and one in the northeastern Scott County, in the city of Prior Lake. The Jordan home is a Sears Glendale model. The Prior Lake home is a Maytown. At last count, the Kit Homes Facebook group had confirmed at least 22 Sears homes throughout Minnesota.
The Maytown (Modern Home No. 167), in Prior Lake, and the Glendale, located in Jordan, are confirmed Sears mail-order homes in Scott County. Courtesy of Sears Archives and of Antique Home Style.
Pam Killian of the Lydia Area Historical Society reported the local legend of two other mail-order homes in Scott County. The homes, built in the mid-1920s, are located smack-dab in the middle of the county, near the junction of Marshall Road, County Road 282, and Minnesota Highway 13. A May 1926 edition of the Shakopee Argus reported that “Ed Hafferman and Walter Killian are busy preparing the basements for their fine, new seven room bungalows, they are going to have erected in the near future.”
The story goes that the two homes, about a half mile apart, were similar designs from the same mail-order home manufacturer. Because the homes were so close in space and design, parts of each house were delivered to the wrong construction site, and some real sleuthing was required to untangle the mix-up. Apparently, the homeowners forgot the cardinal rule, found in a mail-order home handbook: “In unloading the [train] car, do not mix the lumber all up, but keep each different kind of material by itself as much as you possibly can. This will save you the labor of re-sorting this material later on.”
Scott County may be home to as-yet undiscovered mail-order homes from other manufacturers, though that hasn’t been established.
Wondering Whether You Live in a Mail-Order Home?
Many people question their own home’s origins. Consider the following as you try to determine whether your dwelling is a mail-order home:
● Many mail-order home companies used distinctive identification markings on pieces. For example, Sears stamped alphanumeric codes on the lumber—one letter and three numerals. It may be possible to view these markings on ceiling joists in an unfinished basement, for example, or on exposed rafters in the attic.
● Exterior or interior details may provide clues about whether a house is a mail-order home and, if so, which manufacturer. This, however, can be a less reliable way to identify houses, given that most remaining mail-order homes have been altered and that mail-order home manufacturers “borrowed” (or more accurately “stole”) plans from other builders for their own use.
● Another clue may be found in the county recorder’s office. Old mortgage records name the financing entity. If the records show that a home was financed by Sears, Roebuck, for example, you can be fairly certain it is a mail-order Sears Modern Home, especially if combined with other clues. Other financing companies may provide clues to the manufacturer of a house in question.
If you are aware of any mail-order homes in Scott County—Sears, Wardway, Harris Brothers, or other manufacturers—we’d love to hear your story! Contact us at info@scottcountyhistory.org or message our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/SCHSHistory.
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Thank you to Lara Solonicke of the Kit Homes Facebook group for her immeasurable help in producing this article. Thank you to Pam Killian of the Lydia Area Historical Society.
1926 Wardway Homes: Kit Houses. (n.d.). Daily Bungalow. https://www.flickr.com/photos/daily-bungalow/albums/72157613056938344/
Abid, Ayesha. (2018, October 20). Sears Is Fading, but Memories of Its Mail-Order Homes Endure. MPR. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/20/657770791/sears-is-fading-but-memories-of-its-mail-order-homes-endure
Guide to Kit Houses & Homes. (n.d.). InspectAPedia. https://inspectapedia.com/Design/Kit_Houses.php
How to Identify a Sears Kit Home. (2021, June 15). WikiHow. https://www.wikihow.com/Identify-a-Sears-Kit-Home Hunter, Rebecca L. (n.d.). Historical Architectural Research. http://www.kithouse.org/ Kit Home History. (2007, November 14). StarTribune. https://www.startribune.com/kit-home-history/11308806/
Montgomery Ward Co. (1930). How to Erect Your Wardway Ready-Cut Home. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/MontgomeryWardCoHowtoerectyourwardwayreadycuthome0001/ Montgomery Ward—Wardway Homes. (2015). Antique Home Style. https://www.antiquehomestyle.com/plans/montgomery-ward/index.htm
Thornton, Rosemary. (n.d.). How to Find Sears Modern Homes. https://www.oldhouseweb.com/architecture-and-design/how-to-find-sears-modern-homes.shtml
What Is a Sears Home? (2012, March 21). Sears Archives. http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/index.htm
If you are interested in writing for the SCHS blog, email info@scottcounthistory.org or call 952-445-0378.