1886 GRAPHIC EARLY KANSAS CITY MISSOURI BILLHEAD HALL AND WILLIS HARDWARE for Sale

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1886 GRAPHIC EARLY KANSAS CITY MISSOURI BILLHEAD HALL AND WILLIS HARDWARE For Sale

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1886 GRAPHIC EARLY KANSAS CITY MISSOURI BILLHEAD HALL AND WILLIS HARDWARE:
$4.99

1886 GRAPHIC EARLY KANSAS CITY MISSOURI BILLHEAD, HALL AND WILLIS HARDWARE. ORIGINAL. ALSO, THE CURRENT LOCATION PICTURE. 132 YEARS OLD. GREAT VIGNETTE

"HARDWARE, CUTTLERY, GUNS, PISTOLS, SHEET IRON AND TIN PLATE, ETC".
TINNERS STOCK, PLAIN AND BARBED WIRE, NAILS
ESTABLISHED IN APPROX. 1846
CORNER OF ST LOUIS AND SANTA FE STREETS.
SOLD TO UNION DEPOT, KANSAS CITY

SEE MY STORE: VINTAGE HARDWARE STORE COLLECTIBLES

HALL & WILLIS HARDWARE CO. (written in 1886)

Both in point of age, volume of business and extent of stock carried this institution is the representative house in this line of business in this market. It was founded some thirty years ago by J. L. Kelley, and afterwards became Kelley, Willis & Co., and still later was incorporated as the Hall & Willis Hardware Co. Previous to the incorporation Mr. T. F. Willis and Mr. Selby Jones had, for many years, been interested in the firm of Kelley, Willis & Co., and at the time of the organization of the company, Mr. W. H. Hall became associated with them. The officers of the company are T. F. Willis, president; W. H. Hall, vice-president, and Selby Jones, secretary and treasurer.

The company are jobbers and importers of hardware and cutlery and carry an enormous stock, comprising everything in these lines, and including all articles classified as shelf hardware' and tinners' stock. They employ a capital of $600,000 and transact a business aggregating $1,175,000 each year. Their trade extends throughout the entire territory that is reached by any jobbing interest in Kansas City, and the extent to which the hardware business has grown in this market, and the vast territory that has been educated to look to this city for its supplies is in no small degree due to the energetic policy with which the affairs of this company have been conducted.

Union Depot

Union Avenue

completed 1878, demolished 1915

by Susan Jezak Ford

When Union Depot was built in Kansas City?s West Bottoms, it was frequently called the ?Jackson County Insane Asylum? by those who believed that the city would never have a need for such a large train station. It did not take long, however, for the city to outgrow the immense, new showplace.

Kansas City was home to 60,000 citizens when the depot was built in 1878. The fashionable, elegant building replaced a two-room structure designed by Octave Chanute. The site for Union Depot was acquired from early Kansas City leaders Kersey Coates and William H. Hopkins. In 1869 the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the first railroad to reach Kansas City, purchased part of the site for railroad tracks from the two property owners. The Missouri River and Gulf Railroad bought more land from the men in 1870 for Kansas City?s first train station. The city condemned 6.5 additional acres for the new Union Depot in 1878. Altogether, the depot building?the second Union Depot in the country?and the adjoining land cost the city $300,000. (St. Louis was the first city where the various railroad companies decided to locate their terminal facilities in one location.)

The ornate Union Depot was built parallel to the bluffs of the West Bottoms and stood between the railroad tracks and Union Avenue. As one approached the station from the upper elevation of downtown Kansas City, the towers of the depot recalled the faraway skylines of Paris, Vienna, or Berlin. ?It is one of the most picturesque and attractive buildings in the United States,? The Kansas City Star reporter wrote. The writer went on to describe the building as designed in the Renaissance style and ?somewhat Frenchy? with its mansard roof and Parisian towers. ?The architect has given us the handsomest and most pleasing union of two of the most pleasing styles in modern architecture,? he concluded. The depot opened for business on April 8, 1878.

ORIGINAL, LETTERHEADS, LETTERHEAD, BILLHEAD, BILLHEADS, HARDWARE, RAILROAD.

I AM PRICED MANY TIMESLOWER THAN MOST SELLERS ON .