Sheboygan storefront, today home to Black Pig restaurant, was once occupied by Montgomery Ward
SHEBOYGAN - The Sheboygan Press featured a nearly full-page story touting the June 1936 opening of the new Montgomery Ward store at 817-819 N. Eighth St.
The 36,000-square-foot store featured three stories of retail goods that customers could inspect in person, the Press article reported.
Another Press article said things made in Sheboygan were sold by the firm in more than 500 stores.
Aaron Montgomery Ward founded Montgomery Ward in 1872. The Chicago-based business, nicknamed Monkey Ward by many, started out as a mail-order business and would remain that way until the 1920s, when the company, according to Wikipedia, began to have retail locations all across the country. Sheboygan would become one of those locations.
According to a Sheboygan Press clipping, in a 1960 history of the company article, Wards opened its first Sheboygan retail location at 1228 N. Eighth St. in 1928. At the time the retail location opened, only 30 Montgomery Ward locations were open nationwide. The firm had begun opening retail locations nationwide in 1926.
In 1936, in the depth of the Great Depression, the company opened its grand store on North Eighth Street.
In reading Sheboygan Press clippings, the company had a range of offerings from hubcaps to furnaces, with some items available on an installment plan.
An ad in 1959 urged hunters to their sporting goods department with claims of supplying all their needs for the hunt.
The store operated on North Eighth Street until 1960, when the nationwide chain closed that location and decided instead to again depend upon mail orders for its Sheboygan operations.
Montgomery Wards nationwide would close for good in 2000.
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In 1967, the building was sold to the Milwaukee real estate company Bockl Corporation, with the aid of Sheboygan's Kohl Realty Co. and Gottsacker Real Estate Co. At the time, according to a Press article from Beth Dippel of the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center, there was hope to redevelop the building into choice retail spots. In 1960, the building was assessed at nearly $200,000 but its worth later dropped to half that when it sat empty.
Later in 1963 and 1964, Holman Realty Co. offered a "package" of properties in the north half of the 800 block of North Eighth Street as a possible location for a new JCPenney department store.
The Montgomery Ward building would have been razed if the Holman firm had prevailed with the proposal. Instead, JCPenney and Sears announced plans to locate in the new Memorial Mall.
Later, Baxter's Pizza would occupy the building until sometime in the 1990s.
According to Black Pig owner Rob Hurrie, he opened the restaurant Margaux there in 2005 and later evolved as the Black Pig, which continues its operations today.
This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan had a Montgomery Ward store where Black Pig restaurant is
