Sears, Roebuck and Company Mail-Order House Survey

From October 1, 1986 through September 30, 1987, the Prince George’s County Historic Preservation staff conducted a field survey of Sears, Roebuck and Company mail-order houses in the County. The Sears, Roebuck mail-order house survey and a companion study of Victorian pattern book houses in Prince George’s County were comp orients of ongoing research projects of the Prince George’s County Historic Preservation Commission, implemented by the Planning Department of M-NCPPC with a matching grant from the Certified Local Government program of the Maryland Historical Trust. This survey of Sears mail-order houses was conducted with the advice and ongoing involvement of Raymond W. Bellamy, Jr., Cheverly Town Historian and Prince George’s County Historic Preservation Commissioner from September 1986 through January 1989. Mr. Bellamy became knowledgeable about Sears mail-order houses through his study of the 25 models constructed in the Town of Cheverly. His extensive research on those structures is incorporated into this report. I would like to acknowledge his help and thank him for his assistance on this project. Thanks also goes to the many Sears mail-order house owners who supplied information on their houses for this study, and to members of the Prince George’s County Historical Society who “found” and reported on Sears houses in the County for this study. The eighty-two Sears mail-order houses identified during this survey are not the total number of Sears houses standing in the County. More have been identified since this study’s completion. Identification and cataloging of Sears and other mail-order houses in the County will be an ongoing project of the Historic Preservation Commission. Some original drawings and text in this report are from Houses by Mail, by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl. These include pages 30, 34, 39, 42, 43, 45, 47, 49, 54, 56, 60, 64, 67, 70, 72, 74, 76, 77, 79, 83, 89, 91, 93, 95, 100, 102, 104, 105, 107, 109 and 111 of this study. These pages are reproduced with the permission of the Preservation Press of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Prints of the above pages can be ordered from the Preservation Press at a cost of $10 for each print. Contact Chris O’Neil at (202) 673-4057.

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