Fore Shoe Company Building, Washington, Missouri.Photo byJon Roanhaus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The two-story Fore Shoe Company Building was constructed in 1925. A two and three-story additions to it occurred in 1927. This historic building is at 601 East 6th Street / 700 E. 5th Street in Washington, Missouri (Franklin County).

The building is also known as the Washington Shoe Company Building and the Kane Dunham & Kraus Shoe Company Building (KDK). The original section of the building included reinforced concrete and a wood beam structure. The additions were steel frame construction.

The factory building closed in 1975. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 23, 2005.

The building was eventually renovated by Baron Design & Associates which played a role in having it placed on the National Register. Today, the building is known as the MacArthur Park Senior Apartments designed for seniors.

Backstory

The Fore Shoe Company Building is important because of its association with an industry that helped the economy of Washington, Missouri. The building provided jobs in the community from the time the company operated through about 1971. The company was one of two shoe companies in the city.

In 1924, the Fore Shoe Company of St. Louis started its operations at this location, and in 1929, the Kane, Dunham, and Kraus Shoe Company (KDK) bought the shoe factory.

When KDK came to Washington, it provided 130 jobs which increased the following year. The International Shoe Company and KDK had a significant number of employees. In 1949 when KDK closed, the property was acquired in 1950 by Wolff Shoes of St. Louis.

The City of Washington

Franklin County was organized in 1818. Washington started as the St. Joh's settlement on the Missouri River banks. Settlers came from Kentucky and Tennessee.

In 1827, the settlement site was acquired by a Franklin County public official, William G. Owens, to establish a town. In the summer of 1829, the town of Washington started offering sites for sale. Your lot was free if you could build a home on it within two years.

In 1834, Owens was shot and killed. He was only 38. His son-in-law, John F. Mense, took care of some of the legal affairs hung up in probate.

Many German-born immigrants settled in Washington. In 1824, German attorney, Gottfried Duden, visited the area. He wrote a report on his visit after returning to Germany. The report was read by two German families of Bernard Fricke and Charles Eberius and they obtained the free lots of Owen and built homes.

His book on the region, comparing the Missouri River to the Rhine in Germany, and his positive remarks concerning the climate, culture and soils in Missouri led to untold tens of thousands of German immigrants to the area beginning in the 1830s. (Source.)

Once more German families learned how fertile the valley was along the Missouri River, they immigrated to Washington, Missouri. In the mid-1850s, the Pacific Railroad constructed a depot in Washington which influenced economic growth.

In 1854, John B. Busch established a Busch Brewery in Washington. His brother was Augustus A. Busch who had the St. Louis Busch Brewery.

The first newspaper, The Franklin Courier, was established in 1856. The paper was published in English and German. By 1860, most of the residents were German.

As the Civil War approached, the German settlers in the city opposed slavery. They were loyal to America and many joined the Union Army. There were about 2,000 Union troops but on October 1, 1864, there weren't enough of them to hold off Confederate General Sterling Price's 10,000 troops. Many of the residents headed north.

After Price's men took what they wanted, they set the railroad depot on fire and left for Jefferson City. After the war, Washington did prosper. In 1869, Henry Tibbe arrived from Holland. He originated the corncob pipe. He and his so patented their process of the pipe which became known as the Missouri Meerschaum Pipe. The Missouri Meerschaum Company is still active and celebrated its 155th anniversary.

The Shoe Industry

One of the first significant businesses in Washington was shoe company, Roberts, Johnson and Rand, which was headquartered in St. Louis. In 1924, the Chamber of Commerce raised money for the Fore Shoe Company to establish a subsidiary in Washington.

The building operated for a short period under the Fore Shoe Company name. In October 1925, the name was changed to the Washington Shoe Company.

It operated as the Washington Shoe Company until 1929 when it was purchased by Kane Dunham and Kraus (KDK). There were many people employed by the shoe factories and the number of people employed by KDK grew after they took over.

In the late 1930s, the United Shoe Worker's of America (USWA) organized. This trade union's material and documents from 1940 to 1985 is stored at the State Historical Society of Missouri.

Many factories owned the homes where their employees lived. They also wanted the employees to use their company stores which charged more than local stores.

There was also mandatory overtime without additional compensation. The factory workers also blamed the factory owners for poor working conditions.

In 1946, KDK was weakened by a strike. By 1949, its factory closed. In 1950, the Wolff Shoe Company from St. Louis purchased it. It opened as Deb Shoe Company from 1950 through 1971 and the factory's product line was womens dress shoes. The company was sold in 1971.

Wolff Shoe Company is operating as Wolff ST, LLC in Fenton, Missouri today.

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