By Diane Euston
As Kansas City grew from a dusty, western town along the riverfront into a metropolis, few businesses garnered the memories of so many quite like Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company, commonly called EBT. For generations, families flocked to Petticoat Lane downtown to peruse the aisles of the dry goods store.
Before the suburbs saturated the area and shopping centers catered to customers, a trip downtown to 11th and Grand Ave. would be in order for all occasions. Petticoat Lane – and her flagship business, EBT – is where fashion flourished.
Behind the business during the height of its dominance in the dry goods arena was a grey-eyed, 5’5” tall woman of exceptional ability. Although the company held the namesake of men over the years, a woman named Annie Bird served as president for 18 years when most women were tasked with nothing more than household chores and stereotypical “wifely” duties.
Before EBT
The firm which would be commonly called Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company began business in Kansas City at 6th and Main prior to 1860. In 1861, debts caused its original owner, Franklin Conant, to sell his interest in his large wholesale business to William Gilliss and Kersey Coates. The firm became known as Gilliss & Coates.
Two years later during the height of the Civil War, Gilliss’ interest was sold to Lathrop Bullene and his brother, Thomas, and the firm became known as Coates & Bullene. Slowly, the business moved from selling goods to travelers on the Santa Fe Trail to furnishings and goods needed for the local economy.
In 1867, William E. Emery, a clerk at the growing store, bought into the company and the name again changed to Bullene Brothers & Emery. A year later, Emery’s young nephew, 20-year-old Joseph Taylor Bird (1848-1918), moved from the east to work for the company. The successful business, then called Bullene Brothers, moved to a three-story building at 7th and Main in 1870.
Joseph quickly found a place within the company as head of the entire retail department, and by 1875, he purchased a small interest in the company. He believed “no misrepresentations of any kind were to be made concerning goods sold by the store, either in the firm’s advertisements or by the sales force.” This included making sure that all prices were clearly marked on merchandise and this business model proved to be most successful with a growing Kansas City.
The 30-something successful businessman of “sterling business qualities” had his sights clearly set on building an empire, but it wouldn’t be long before he set his sights on a brown-haired, gray-eyed beauty living just up the river.
Annie’s Entrance into Kansas City
Annie Creal Ridenbaugh was born in 1856 in St. Joseph, Mo. to parents William Fahnestock Ridenbaugh (1821-1874) and Hannah Seymour Creal (1828-1866). Her father, born in Pennsylvania, moved to Liberty, Mo. in 1843. Two years later, he chose St. Joe as his permanent home.
William Ridenbaugh founded the St. Joseph Gazette newspaper in 1845 and worked in the printing and publishing industries, quickly advancing to the top of St. Joe society. He married Hannah Creal in 1847. The couple welcomed six children, the fourth being Annie.
Annie’s mother passed away in 1866, and her father followed in 1874 when she was only 18 years old. She then moved into an older sister, Mollie’s home.
In June 1880, the streets of St. Joe were abuzz when a plethora of Kansas City businessmen including Joseph Bird checked into the Pacific Hotel. Rumors were true; the “fair favorite” 24-year-old Annie Ridenbaugh was to be married.
Annie Riddenbaugh wed Joseph Bird in her sister’s parlor on Hall Street in St. Joe “standing immediately beneath a large wreath of leaves and flowers, from the centre of which hung. . . a huge floral bell.”
The St. Joseph Gazette wrote, “[Annie] is one of the loveliest, most estimable young ladies in the city, and her many young friends while rejoicing in her good fortune in securing so noble a man for a companion through life, will regret that she is to leave them. But what is St. Joseph’s loss is Kansas City’s gain.” The couple quickly settled into life in Kansas City, living in rooms at the fashionable Coates House Hotel.
In 1881, Joseph Bird was made a full partner in Bullene, Moore & Emery.
Even though her husband’s business interests were on the rise, their family life took a few large hits in their early marriage. In 1882, their six-week-old son, Joseph, Jr., died of inflammation of the intestines. Two years later, their second-born son died from a collapsed lung at just one day old.
It was Annie’s dream to be a mother, and these early losses certainly shaped the strong woman that she became. In 1889, the couple was blessed with a daughter named Josephine. The newspaper later wrote of the relationship Joseph T. Bird had with his only child. “The affection he displayed for his only living child, a daughter, Miss Josephine Bird, was the companionship a father often gives only to a son.”
Perhaps Joseph was a man before his time, because not only did he dote on his daughter, he shared with his wife the keen business decisions he made and often consulted with her before making large decisions.
Moving Up in Business and at Home
In 1890, the firm became known as Bullene, Moore, Emery, & Company and was ready to take up more real estate in growing Kansas City. In 1890, Joseph Bird led the charge in a move south to a new structure at 11th and Grand.
Others in the retail business balked at Bird, stating he was “going into the woods” and would be too far out of the way from anything.
Joseph Bird ignored them and commissioned famed architect Henry Van Brunt to build this enormous department store that would be later coined “an architectural jewel.” Six stories tall and built in Romanesque revival style complete with red brick and pink sandstone accents, the new store matched the emergence from a cowtown into a beautiful metropolis.
“The Big Store,” as it became known, spanned an entire city block and boasted wide aisles, brass elevator cages and a famed Tea Room on the third floor. It was said that it had two acres of floor space. Within short order, it became known as the finest department store west of the Mississippi.
The store featured 403 windows, 485 decorative columns and 10,000 feet of counters. A grand stairway and the ladies reception parlor were described as “a work of art.” Three elevators carried patrons throughout the six stories that included a men’s finishing department, ladies hosiery, corsets, leather goods, druggists’ sundries and linens. A tea room was a fashionable place to stop for a quick snack while shopping.
One impressive feature of Bullene, Moore, Thayer & Co. was a pneumatic tube cash system that started at the cashier’s office on the third floor. Some 35 cashier stations throughout the building were connected by two-inch-wide suction tubes that sent cash flowing throughout the building. The tubes traveled as much as 2.5 miles to each location.
It didn’t take long for other dry goods stores to move south to join the large department store, and even the architecture of these new buildings was similar to it. As the area built up with several options for shopping, it became known as Petticoat Lane.
In 1895, T.B. Bullene passed away, and the firm made its final name change to Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company. Joseph Bird served as vice president.
Although the Birds welcomed a daughter in 1889, their plans for a large family never materialized. Regardless, they doted on their sweet daughter Josephine who was sent to the prestigious Barstow School. From 1897-1904, the threesome lived in a large brick house on Quality Hill at 704 W. 10th.
The couple looked further south for their next dwelling, and when the opportunity to purchase an incredible property at 36th and Broadway emerged, they didn’t hesitate.
Built by coal merchant John Perry in 1898, the 18-room Southern colonial mansion coined “Elmhurst” on five acres matched their desires. The house cost $40,000 when it was built, and its rooms showcased Annie Bird’s antiques, china, glassware, pottery and fine rugs, and Joseph held a special place for expensive watches and shotguns.
When William Emery died in 1912, Joseph Bird was named president of EBT. Despite the growing business, the couple extensively traveled with their daughter, even sending Josephine to school in Venice.
By 1915, EBT grew to 2,000 loyal employees.
Breaking Barriers
The Birds were always philanthropic, giving to many local organizations over time. During World War I, they even financed an entire field hospital in France.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck the Birds. While on a “motoring trip,” Joseph Bird died of a heart attack in Colorado Springs on September 8, 1918. He was 70 years old.
Tributes poured into the newspapers about his fine character and how he always, without any reservations, stood by his employees. He never deviated from the high standards he held at EBT, and this conviction largely resulted in the firm’s success.
The confidence that Joseph Taylor Bird had in his wife cannot be overstated. When his will was read days after his death, Mrs. Annie Bird became the trustee of his large estate. When other men would have signed over control to an attorney or executor to manage, Joseph trusted his wife in all matters – personal and professional.
The Kansas City Times reported, “Mrs. Bird accepted a column trusteeship as a grave responsibility, feeling called upon to give to the policy of the shop the interpretation which Mr. Bird and his associates would have rendered under new conditions.”
Notwithstanding her quiet demeanor and “speaking in a well-modulated voice with decision,” Annie Bird was named president of EBT by an all-male board of directors in 1920. The 64-year-old Annie didn’t take the task lightly.
“The total lack of ostentation that surrounds the conduct of her position is in accord with the fact that Mrs. Bird did not view the presidency of the company as a career, but a responsibility,” the Kansas City Star explained.
She considered herself a trustee to a company which employed thousands of Kansas Citians, and her extensive knowledge of her husband’s business etiquette and dealings ensured that the quality of EBT did not dissipate under her direction.
Annie was “a president without a desk,” because she constantly moved around. She learned this from her husband’s time as president, where Joseph would glide through the spacious aisles with a smile, greeting employees by name with a friendly, “Good morning.” Annie coyly told the Star, “I’m a floorwalker… nights” when asked what her duties were.
In 1924, Annie and her daughter, Josephine gave Mercy Hospital (now Children’s Mercy Hospital) the deed to costly land at 15th and McGee. The proceeds of the sale of the land financed Mercy Hospital’s new $185,000 building at 24th and Gillham. The building was known as the Joseph T. Bird Nurses’ Home and School of Child Nursing and was dedicated in 1927.
In 1925, Annie Bird oversaw the opening of another store on the Country Club Plaza at 47th and Broadway, and EBT expanded to a third store on the Independence Square.
Annie wasn’t one to back down from protecting the wealth her husband accumulated. In the 1920s, Annie was involved with several cases with the Treasury Department where she claimed that the appraisal of the stock of goods at EBT was inflated.
“The commissioner refused to allow the claim for a refund and the heirs sued,” the Kansas City Times reported in 1928. Annie and Josephine settled for $25,000 that year, and a year prior, she was refunded around $75,000 due to “over assessment of estate taxes.”
Leading into the Next Generation
Elmhurst, Annie’s beloved estate at 36th and Broadway, was the scene of her only daughter’s wedding on April 18, 1928. Josephine met her match in Porter T. Hall (1879-1947), a Yale University graduate.
Porter’s connection to Kansas City was vast. His great-grandfather, Rev. James Porter (1786-1851) was the first Methodist preacher in the area, and he held extensive acreage along Troost Ave. that his family later developed into an exclusive early neighborhood coined “Millionaire’s Row.”
Porter Hall grew up on a portion of his great-grandfather’s land at 2709 Tracy and worked in his family’s real estate business. Josephine and Porter’s marriage united two of Kansas City’s most powerful families.
An evening service at Elmhurst occurred in the main hall in front of the fireplace decorated “with ciborium ferns, white snapdragons, Easter lilies and Columbia roses.”
Josephine and her husband, Porter welcomed their only son, Joseph Bird Hall in 1930, and in 1935, the couple moved to a four-acre wooded estate with a palatial colonial revival mansion called Westvue at the northeast corner of 55th and State Line.
While Annie kept on as president of EBT, she slowly was not as active “in the detail of the big store’s management.” Her daughter, Josephine, was named vice president in 1929, and her husband, Porter joined the management team that same year.
In 1936, Annie suffered a broken hip that caused her much pain, and on January 28, 1937, she passed away inside Elmhurst from pneumonia at the age of 80 with her daughter by her side.
For 17 years, Annie Bird held the title of president of one of Kansas City’s largest businesses, an unmatched feat for the time.
The city, in many ways, built up around Annie Bird. As she spent 33 years as caretaker of her five-acre estate, Elmhurst, the city slowly crept south and “a theater and busy shops became neighbors.”
Josephine made the decision to raze the home a year after her mother’s death and sell the valuable land for development. Curiously, the house was leveled, but the impressive stone outline and wall just north of Valentine on Jefferson St. still stands as a small reminder of a time so quickly lost. The gate, now padlocked shut and leading to the backside of commercial businesses, seems out of place but speaks of what once was. To the right of the gate, a simple stone carved with capital letters announcing Elmhurst remains but leads today to a concrete parking lot off a busy intersection.
Annie left an estate to Josephine worth just over $500,000, part of which included the Emery, Bird, Thayer Realty Company and just over $200,000 rested in shares in EBT.
Josephine continued as vice president, and her husband, Porter Hall was named president of EBT. Josephine donated new chimes in the tower of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in honor of her beloved mother.
When Josephine suddenly passed away in 1943 of a heart attack, she left her husband, Porter and her 12-year-old son.
The writing, in some ways, was on the wall. Downtown businesses were on the decline due to the move to the suburbs and the creation of convenient shopping centers. Porter looked toward the future and at his teenage son’s best interests. In 1945, he sold the controlling interest of EBT to a company out of St. Louis.
In 1947, Porter T. Hall died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 67.
EBT would live on for two more decades outside the control of the Bird family, but the decline of downtown businesses sealed its fate. The store closed its doors in 1968.
For more than 80 years the EBT building was a time capsule of memories and historic charm; it was even protected on the National Register of Historic Places. Despite this, UMB Bank purchased the building and demolished it in 1972 to make way for a more modern structure.
In September 1979, 89 years after the famed building opened its doors to the public on Petticoat Lane, UMB Bank opened EBT Restaurant in their building at I-435 and State Line Road. Artifacts saved from the old Emery, Bird, Thayer & Co. dry goods store, including two elevator cages, were featured in the restaurant until it closed its doors for good after a final New Year’s Eve celebration in 2015.
EBT as a Legacy
Countless memories attached to EBT are ingrained in people who remember, as the Star described in 1969, “freshly scrubbed country boys and girls who wandered through the aisles, eyes wide with wonder of all the store held, as their mothers and fathers made annual purchases at Emery, Bird, Thayer.”
Little seems to survive in this city, but if you look closely, there are still hidden gems attached to the past. Porter and Josephine Bird Hall’s home still stands and is listed on the National Register; the home passed to their son and stayed in the family until 1981. Countless preserved boxes donning the EBT logo still coat the attics of collectors.
And there’s that stone wall we’ve all likely passed by thousands of times at 36th and Broadway that blends into the concrete, sidewalks and busy businesses around it. It was the entrance into Annie Bird’s beloved home. She was the female president of any large business in this city.
Sometimes, we just have to dig a little deeper to see the influences of others. We have to peer a little closer to the things we pass by every day – they hold a story, just like the remaining wall in midtown. It’s part of Annie Bird’s story, and she’s a part of the incredible history of a department store that is held close to the heart of so many who have called Kansas City home.
Diane writes about the history of the area. To read more of the stories, go to www.newsantafetrailer.blogspot.com.