1400 University Ave W
St Paul, MN 55104, USA

Montgomery Ward & Company Northwestern Catalog House, 1400 University Ave weSt Saint Paul, Ramsey County, MN

As one of the first Montgomery Ward catalog houses built outside Chicago, the property represents a period of expansion and change in the history of the country`s first mail-order house. Conceived as Ward`s northwestern branch, the facility housed only a mail-order operation and its associated administrative offices. Soon after the branch was established, however, competition forced the company to move into the retail field. Ward`s focus increasingly shifted to retail, and the property underwent substantial alterations to accommodate the change. Montgomery Ward`s decision to locate the branch in the Midway District of Saint Paul reflects that area`s emergence as a commercial and industrial zone. The property immediately became a landmark, owing to its size as much as to the tower that rises from the Operations Building. The company boasted in 1921 that the 257` tower was the tallest reinforced concrete structure ever built.