Distinctly Montana Magazine

M Y M O N T A N A H O M E 8 6 Authenticating kit houses is notori- ously difficult, given how few are left standing, renovations that may have changed their appearance, and how similar they look to popular designs. If you are interested in finding out whether your home might be a kit home, a good place to start is with a search of grantor records at your county courthouse. If a mortgage was ever held by Sears or Montgomery Ward, it will likely be recorded. You might also look for stamped lumber or shipping labels in basements, attics, and other out-of-the-way corners. Other resources to acquaint yourself with visually identifying kit homes or learning more about their history are Finding the Houses that Sears Built by Rosemary Thornton, America's Favorite Homes: Mail Order Homes as a Guide to Popular Early 20th-Centu- ry Houses by Robert Schweitzer and Michael W. R. Davis, and Mail Order Homes: Sears Homes and Other Kit Homes by Rebecca Hunter. In papers like the Bill- ings Gazette, the Ravalli Republic, and The Missou- lian, advertise- ments, letters, and editorial columns attested to the widespread backlash against mail-order companies in the early twentieth century. In 1925, the All-Mon- tana Development Association sponsored a letter-writing contest as part of its Buy-At- Home campaign. Taking first place and the hundred-dollar cash prize was Lester Byron, a rancher in Lincoln County, who lamented that "the dollar you spend away—is a dollar gone. The dollar you spend at home—is the dollar that adds power and production to Montana." Aladdin infrequently ran advertisements in Montana papers that proclaimed "30% saving on labor" and "18% saving on lum- ber." But much more common were adver- tisements from coalitions of "public-spirited citizens," or business owners, protesting the incursions of catalog houses on the local market. Historic preservationist Paul Putz of Townsend explains that the pushback from local business communities was there from the beginning—not just against kit homes, but against all mail-order products. A July 17, 1927 article in the Helena Independent paints a facetious picture of one hypocritical citizen "on the way to the mail box [sic] with a fat mail-order blank in an envelope with his check, and the song 'Keep the Home Fires Burning' on his lips." In the Billings Gazette on March 24, 1919, Thompson Yards ran an ad that directly compared their prices to those of mail-order houses from Gordon Van-Tine, Sears, Aladdin Readi-Cut, and Harris Brothers. The difference in each instance was about $200 in favor of Thompson Yards. "Notwithstanding the fact that most mail order houses claim to be able to save the user of lumber from 30 per cent to 50 per cent," the ad grudgingly concedes, "it is quite evident that their claims are not intended to apply to towns where we operate a Thompson Yard." THE SLOW DECLINE OF THE KIT HOME EMPIRE All the national companies put their kit home departments on hiatus in WWI when building materials were requisitioned for wartime use. Aladdin and Lewis were two examples who kept afloat by contracting with the military for barracks construction. The biggest year for kit homes across the country was 1928-1929, when companies be- gan catering to suburban and urban custom- ers over rural customers. Then Black Monday happened, and the Great Depression induced a slump in sales for several years. Those companies who offered mortgages had their ingenious idea backfire on them when they had to foreclose on their own customers. Though the Great Depression was not exactly a death knell for the kit home industry, it was the beginning of the end. The industry enjoyed a brief resurgence in the late thirties before World War II, when materials were again requisitioned. The post-WWII housing boom proved too little, too late to return the industry to its former glory. Sears closed its Modern Homes department in 1940, and after selling 37,000 homes west of the Rockies, Pacific Ready-Cut Homes transitioned to making surfboards after WWII. Montgomery Ward had already put the kibosh on its kit home department in 1931 after selling a total of about 30,000 homes. Hanger-on Aladdin continued selling kit homes through 1983, for a total of about 100,000 houses. The self-sufficiency and individualism of the American West ultimately proved at odds with the do-it-yourself culture ap- propriated by catalog companies for their own profit. This is a surprising revelation given the romance surrounding the history of kit homes, as well as the pretty minimal financing requirements that mail-order companies asked of people who otherwise would not have been able to afford to buy a home. On the other hand, it is not surprising at all when the contrarian and communi- ty-minded spirit of the average Montanan is considered. Build it yourself!

• Cover