STUDENTS RESEARCHING MAIL-ORDER HOME TOUR

It used to be that a man's castle might be shipped to him. Mail-order homes were the rage at one time.

Such houses hold a fascination with John Bry, a historic preservation student at Southeast Missouri State University, and Sue Corvick, a graduate student in history.

"We are working on researching the homes and we are putting together a driving and walking tour of the mail-order homes built in Cape Girardeau," said Bry.

"We are planning to put this into a brochure through the Center for Regional History," he said.

"We would like people to call in and tell us if they know where there is one of if they live in one, so we can go and do the documentation of the house, photograph it and do some research on it," he said.

"It is a unique thing because I think a lot of people never realized you could get an entire house -- everything you needed -- by mail.

"You had to do the foundation and a lot of people would hire a contractor to put it all together for them, but you got everything down to the nails," he said.

Bry said that he and Corvick believe there are a number of mail-order homes in Cape. "We already have a couple documented."

One is a two-story frame house at 24 N. Middle. "It is a Dutch colonial, built around 1910," said Bry.

"We believe most of them in town probably came from the Cairo (Illinois) plant. Sears had a huge, huge plant in Cairo. They were shipped all over the country."

The plant made everything from ready-cut to pre-fab homes. The pre-fab homes were constructed at the plant and shipped out in sections. The factory opened in the early 1900s and closed on Dec. 31, 1955.

The Chicago-based Sears offered nearly everything you needed -- lumber, shingles, roofing, mill work, plaster, doors, windows, fixtures and paints -- for its ready-cut homes.

Each home shipment included a complete set of blueprints prepared by Sears architects.

Beginning in 1908, Sears sold mail-order homes for nearly half a century.

But Sears wasn't the only mail-order company. Aladdin also sold such houses. "They started in 1906 and they constructed homes through 1983."

The companies designed homes patterned after the popular architectural styles of the day, said Bry. "They did a lot of bungalows, Tudor and colonials.

"Sometimes they did some huge houses," Bry said.

In many cases, he said, such homes can be spotted by the fact that the fixtures, such as the faucets, were stamped with the Sears or Aladdin name.

Mail-order buildings include not only homes, but various outbuildings and barns. "They did it all," he said.

Bry requested persons with any information about mail-order buildings in Cape Girardeau to contact him at 339-0925 or the Center for Regional History at 651-2555.