Home Lumber & Supply Co Coupons

In the May 11, 1905 issue of the CLARK COUNTY CLIPPER the following news item was found: “A number of citizens in Ashland and the surrounding country met Saturday, May 6 th, and organized the Home Lumber and Supply Company… This is a good company and prospects for success are splendid.” It’s possible that skeptics of the day might have discounted such editorial optimism by pointing out that the editor of the newspaper was also secretary of the newly formed corporation! The company founder, Mr. J.W. Berryman, was born Missouri in 1870. The grandson of an early Missionary of the M.E. South Church to the Indians in Kansas, and son of a physician was raised on a farm near Arcadia, Missouri. At the age of 17 he moved to Kansas and began working as a chore boy at the bank in Elk City (Montgomery Co.). In 1892 he moved to Medicine Lodge, KS becoming vice president of the Citizens National Bank. He was associated with Mr. C.Q. Chandler during this time, and together the two organized and operated many banks in S. Kansas. He established a bank at Pond Creek, OK in the fall of 1893 following the opening of the Cherokee Strip. In 1899 he bought controlling interest in the Stockgrowers National Bank of Ashland, Kansas, where he made his home until his death in 1940. Mr. Berryman, also, had an early interest in building materials. The original charter from the Secretary of State shows the purpose of the company to “carry on the business of buying, selling or dealing in lumber or grain or their manufactured products, lime, hair, cement, brick, fuel, machinery, hardware and supplies of all kinds …necessary to the conduct of such business”. The young company experienced immediate growth when several of the lumberyards he owned prior to 1905 were consolidated into the new corporation. By 1915 as rail heads were being established in the new state of Oklahoma, the company owned 15 lumberyards within 50 miles of Ashland in the two states. Home Lumber has owned and operated 40 locations over the last 100 years. While there were 25 regional line yard companies in Kansas in the early 1900’s, today there are 8. Home Lumber is the largest and oldest with 16 stores. It is proud to have been part of the growth and development of the communities where it has operated, and humbled with the realization that such growth was possible only through the friendship and patronage of its’ local customers.