Aspinock Memories
Histories of Montgomery Ward and in Putnam
By Terri Pearsall,
AHS Museum Curator
Let’s begin by learning a little history about the Montgomery Ward business. Montgomery Ward was founded in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward as a dry goods mail order business in Chicago. In 1875 he introduced an innovative and unprecedented company policy of “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back”. By 1883, the company’s catalog, which became popularly known as the “Wish Book,” had grown to 240 pages and 10,000 items. In 1926 its first retail outlet store opened in Plymouth, Ind. In 1928 only two years later, it had opened 244 stores. By 1929, it had more than doubled its number of outlets to 531. In 1930, Sears made an offer to merge with Montgomery Ward, but the offer was declined.
The retailer had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money. In 1939, as part of a Christmas promotional campaign, staff copywriter Robert L. May created the character and illustrated a poem of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. At first Rudolph was supposed to be a moose but that was changed because a reindeer seemed friendlier. Mr. May considered naming the reindeer “Rollo” or “Reginald” before deciding upon using the name “Rudolph”. In its first year of publication, Montgomery Ward had distributed 2.5 million copies of Rudolph’s story. The store distributed 6-million copies of the storybook in 1946 and actor/ singer Gene Autry popularized the song nationally.
The Putnam Montgomery Ward Building was built in 1929. It was and still is on the corner of Main Street and Pomfret Street. The store had 4 floors of merchandise. On the Main Street level were household goods and men’s clothing. Upstairs the women’s apparel, the next level was the furniture department. In the basement were automotive and toy departments. The office was on the 2nd floor in the front part of the building. The Putnam Jail was once housed in the basement of the building. In 1973, the business was closed on Main Street and a catalog department was opened in a strip mall in 1974. The building is now home to more than 12 businesses.
At one point the Arts and Framing gallery in the building was the only gallery in the world that represented the artwork of puppeteer Caroll Spinney, better known as Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.
Special thanks to the archives of the Aspinock Historical Society.
Aspinock Memories graces the pages of the Putnam Town Crier to keep Putnam's history alive.
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