Voted Readers’ Choice for Memorable Downriver Business (2014)
Business entrepreneur Aaron Montgomery Ward had spent his formative years in his native New Jersey, but by age nine in 1852, he & his family would move to Michigan, first settling in Niles. Ward’s first work experience was in a barrel stave factory at 14, and would then move on to the town of St. Joseph as a shoe store salesman. Through this, he would quickly develop a keen understanding of business through his other initial Michigan endeavors, which saw him rise to being general manager of a country store by the early 1860s, enabling him to study retailing in depth as well.
Ward (shown at right) would end up relocating from Michigan to the Chicago area in 1865 to work at a lamp house, where he would become a traveling salesman who also sold goods on commission.
While working for the Chicago-based dry-goods firm of Wills, Greg & Company, Ward would lend a listening ear not only to the farmers and rural residents along his routes to the south, but to disgruntled store proprietors and their customer bases. Their main concerns centered around being overcharged by merchants (through their middlemen) who sold often-questionable merchandise to farmers and families who had no other recourse. Ward’s idea was to use direct mail sales for these customers, who would finally experience the comforts of the city atmosphere; where the middleman would be eliminated and the costs would drop substantially.
Although the idea of using mail order was first widespread overseas in Wales as early as 1861, it was still a relatively new idea in the United States. Ward sought to become the first in the country to utilize mail order’s vast potential. He initially found it difficult to convince acquaintances to believe in his idea enough to invest their monies. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 would wipe out his entire inventory.
However, calling upon the determination he certainly learned from his Michigan days, he and two co-workers would pull together to form Montgomery Ward & Company in 1872. The first catalog would be issued that year, encompassing one single sheet with 163 items listed. By 1875, Ward would help publicize his efforts by introducing the phrase, “Satisfaction Guaranteed Or Your Money Back.” Despite initial growing pains, Ward’s inventory grew to over 10,000 items across 240 pages by 1883. The catalog by this time became known as the original Wish Book, and each new issue was carefully reviewed by Ward, who wrote most of the copy in the earliest editions. He would have no major peer in the mail-order business until Sears, Roebuck & Company appeared in 1896 with their catalog, setting the stage for a decades-long battle for supremacy.
By the time of the first department store’s opening in 1926 (Plymouth, IN), Ward already had a major distribution network set up in many localities. The chain would grow exponentially, totaling 244 stores by 1928 and 531 by 1929; the onset of the Great Depression. That era saw Montgomery Ward turn down an acquisition bid by Sears in 1930, which initially did not set well. However, under the initial direction of Sewell Avery beginning in 1931, changes were made to the store’s format independent of the catalog operation. These tweaks proved successful in continuing the growth of the chain, which would see its first metro Detroit location open in neighboring Dearborn in 1937. By the end of the decade, Wards would post a profit entering the World War II era.
Avery’s tenure – which would last over two decades – would be scarred during the war, particularly due to a 1944 company-wide strike involving its workforce of 12,000. Despite issuance of a War Labor Board order demanding the company recognize the unions and assemble to work out a CBA, Avery refused to move on the issue. The Roosevelt Administration would end up seizing the company’s Chicago headquarters that year via executive order to push the union issue. But incoming President Truman would end the seizure at the conclusion of the war.
Still, Avery would not make any moves toward new store construction or even basic maintenance of existing locations, fearing another Great Depression era would hit. Wards would then fall to third place in retailing value by the early 1950s. A forced takeover by investor Louis Wolfson in 1955 would wind up seeing the removal of Avery as company CEO. It is assumed that following this action, investments in new properties would resume. It would be this timeframe which saw Ecorse Township come calling for Montgomery Ward to enter the Downriver mainstream (as seen on ad to the right).
The firm would find its home as the new anchor of Southgate Shopping Center, opening by the spring of 1959 and signaling the final piece of the plaza with its 133,000 square foot size. Sears’ Lincoln Park location would be their main competitor, although the Southgate Wards would quickly draw a clientele all its own.
Fashion shows debuted within a few months, foreshadowing the emergence of the Wendy Ward Charm School – a finishing school for etiquette & fashion for teen ladies which would begin in the 1960s.
The new City of Allen Park would also welcome Wards through their boundaries with the early 1960s opening of their distribution warehouse & surplus store on Southfield Road near I-94 (shown below in the 1970s). Much of the inventory was tagged as “Big Ticket,” utilized to supply the growing chain with quality merchandise.
Montgomery Wards’ first buyer would come forward in 1968, falling under the name MARCOR following a merger. Then in 1976, Mobil Oil would purchase the assets of MARCOR, becoming sole owner.
Despite the company being among the first to introduce home computers to the market in 1978, Mobil determined by 1980 that the big-store format was quickly fading, suggesting a discount-store model would be more appropriate.
With this, they referred to the small discounter (owned by Wards since the mid-1970s) named Jefferson-Ward as the new store model. The discount branch was based in the South, therefore the company buyers did not recognize trends popular in the North (including the Downriver area locations). A sudden increase in store count falling under Jefferson-Ward also overwhelmed their staff, which ended up costing the parent company millions of dollars by 1985. That would also be the year Wards finally closed the books on catalog operations, in existence since the 1870s.
However, Wards would receive a positive profit kick that same year with their unveiling of “Electric Avenue,” a store-within-a-store focusing on name-brand electronics, reversing the former practice of selling Wards-branded merchandise exclusively. The Southgate store would house Electric Avenue on the second floor along with a revived appliance department which had moved from below. It would generate additional foot traffic for several years; during which time the company also turned toward redesigning the store interiors to resemble more of a boutique-store format, one that was turning attention away from other department stores.
It is most likely the Southgate store did not receive such a re-design. Many late-1980s visits by this website’s curator revealed an increased disorganization in department layout. For example, he recalled a restaurant in the rear being phased out in the early 1980s and replaced with a pet department; it would end up shifting locations in the back several times before it was eliminated as well.
Credit card operations were moved from a second floor nook location to a sprawling first-floor setup, eliminating much selling space. Carpeting and floor tiles were becoming worn, interior colors were decidedly bland, and signage was poor. In addition, he remembered the elevator becoming notorious in the quality of its operation accompanied by the strong smell of hydraulic fluid.
The overall chain was losing money to the extent that owner Mobil Oil sought to divest themselves of Montgomery Ward from their retail arm. They would indeed become an independent company in 1988 following a $3.8 billion leveraged buyout. This would not stop their money drain, however. In fact, many of their contemporary rivals were also hemorrhaging funds with the risings of Target and Wal-Mart stores, both establishing locations Downriver by 1990 and modernizing the basic structures of the department store model, which the others could not follow.
By 1997, Wards would enter bankruptcy for the first time, emerging the following year under the leadership of GE Capital, who happened to be its largest shareholder at the time. They had kept the company running through bankruptcy with the issuance of a billion-dollar “debtor-in-possession” credit line, where bills to suppliers could be paid and merchandise purchased. It would be during this first bankruptcy that the Allen Park surplus store & warehouse would permanently close in an effort to streamline operations (the site would initially become Danou Technologies; now home to Roush Industries in 2026).
In 1999, the company would emerge from protection with GE Capital as the sole owner. Forgiveness of prior financial claims plus an extra cash infusion would give the chain a clean slate to work with. Under this reorganization, the surname “Montgomery” would be eliminated from the company name. The boutique store model was eliminated (including Electric Avenue), one hundred stores were closed, and more attention was paid to making the remaining locations brighter & flashier.
Despite an eventual GE Capital investment bill of $1.2 billion, the 2000 Christmas season would be the final gasp for Wards, as dismal sales would halt any further investment by GE. All remaining stores were closed by early 2001, resulting in the loss of 37,000 jobs nationwide.
The Southgate store would ultimately stand vacant for another eleven years. The site briefly made headlines in 2007 with the rumors of Wal-Mart showing interest in the area; they had recently been spurned by Sears corporate management in their attempt to build a store adjacent to them in Lincoln Park. Later that year, however, Sisskind voiced his doubts:
“I don’t think there’s going to be any Wal-Mart. That doesn’t mean if talks picked up months from now and I was unsuccessful in renting out the space, that it couldn’t happen then. I just want to rent out my center. And it appears that Wal-Mart is not my answer, at least not right now.” — Michael Sisskind
Ultimately, the Montgomery Ward building would meet the wrecking ball in the fall of 2012, after lengthy delays due to the unusually high amounts of asbestos prevalent almost everywhere in the sales areas. Upon demolition, the storefront would turn into an amphitheater and community gathering space – known today as Market Center Park – on land given back to city ownership by Michael Sisskind, who indicated such a park area could draw more tenants into his shopping center.
The 2012 demolition would be the first major event to be covered visually by contributors to this website.
