In 1924, a group of local businessman in Vanceburg, Kentucky, pooled their resources and had a two-story factory building constructed as an inducement to a Cincinnati-based shoe manufacturer. Their ploy succeeded, and for almost 25 years, L.V. Marks and Sons Company operated a shoe factory in the Ohio River town. The building eventually fell prey to neglect and the elements, but even in its last, least photogenic condition, it represented a point in time, a major employer in a rural area, and even the changing fashions of women’s shoes. The professional side of my life doesn’t often collide with this blog, but I wanted to share this because of the impact an “ordinary looking building” had on a community.
East elevation of the shoe factory building.
Vanceburg, the county seat of Lewis County, the 48th county created in Kentucky, was granted a charter by the legislature in 1827.[1] The town did not become the county seat until after the Civil War.
Section of the 1949 USGS topographic quadrangle map showing Vanceburg, Kentucky.
During the flatboat and steamboat era, the town’s location on the Ohio River resulted in it becoming a major landing, though it did not experience the same growth as its neighbor to the west, Maysville.
Section of the Vanceburg 1929 Sanborn Fire Insurance map (page 3) showing the L.V. Marks and Sons Company Shoe Factory building.
In 1901, Vanceburg was described as having “grown from a small village and two stores to a thriving city of the fifth class and has as fine hotels with all the modern improvements and accommodations as can be found on the Ohio River, and five church buildings, all large, roomy and beautiful edifices…There are twenty stores of all kinds, a lodge each of the Masonic, Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias; two large flouring and feed mills; three complete wagon and blacksmith shops that turn out one and two wagons, all ‘home made,’ each week and of the very best quality.”[2]
A postcard view of the Augusta company building in the early 20th century.
In 1900, the city of Augusta in Bracken County, Kentucky, had a factory building constructed, perhaps speculatively, but perhaps expressly to entice the business of the Marks Company.
At three o’clock in the morning on September 11, 1921, the factory building in Augusta burned. “Several thousand pairs of shoes were destroyed,” and around 100 people were out of work. The city of Augusta had just renewed the lease on the building with the Marks Company for another 10 years.[3] Rebuilding in Augusta would take several years. Vanceburg saw an opening.
L.V. Marks, native of Cincinnati, and head of the company bearing his name.
Following the initial construction of the shoe factory building and the beginning of the Marks Company tenure in Vanceburg, expansion occurred quickly. The shoe factory was a success in its early years, employing hundreds of Lewis County residents.
It appears that the factory building underwent two and possibly three separate building campaigns, enlarging the structure considerably during the 1930s and 1940s.
The west elevation of the L.V. Marks Shoe Factory building in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of Dennis K. Brown of The Lewis County Herald.
According to L.V. Marks’ only daughter, Edith Marks Waldbott, the company “manufactured old ladies walking boots and fine shoes for colored ladies.”[4] Additionally, the Vanceburg factory appears to have been the only factory operating for the company in Kentucky for a few years. But it soon faced competition from neighbors (the factory in Augusta had been rebuilt in 1927 and enlarged in the 1930s), changing fashions, and eventually, World War II.
A 1940 patent for a shoe made by L.V. Marks and Sons Company.
The high, boot-like styles produced by the Marks Company were becoming old-fashioned by 1940. Additionally, labor prices were rising. In the fall of 1944, the Regional War Labor Board ordered L.V. Marks and Sons Company to raise wages at its factories. Semi-skilled work rates were raised from 45 cents an hour to 75 cents, while the rate for skilled work rose from 75 cents to $1 an hour.[5]
Whether or not this specific cost increase impacted the Vanceburg factory is not known – for secondary sources put the closure of the shoe factory as November 1944.
West elevation of the building, facing southeast.
A concise chronology hasn’t been verified, but in January 1945, Morgan Skaggs, President of the Vanceburg branch of the United Shoe Workers Union, wrote letters to Kentucky Senators Alben W. Barkley and A.B. Chandler, offering “at least 200 skilled workers” to the War Production Board if the “Government would arrange to have work brought to Vanceburg.”[6] In the news article, Skaggs mentioned the closure of the factory that previous fall, stating that “there is a real waste of manpower” in Lewis County.
Interior view of the first floor of the old shoe factory building.
A press release from L.V. Marks and Sons Company, issued on June 23, 1949, stated that the board of directors had decided to close the Vanceburg plant.[7]
The company, known for its “moderately priced women’s shoes” employed 160 workers in Vanceburg at the time.
The shoe factory during the 1937 Ohio River flood.
Labor costs, poor management, the flood of 1937, and new footwear fashions all likely contributed to the closure of the Vanceburg Shoe Factory.
The shoe factory, under assault from vegetation, 2017.
Between 1940 and 1950, Vanceburg lost 13.8% of its population. The former shoemakers at the Vanceburg factory moved across the river to jobs in Ohio, or to the west for jobs in Maysville, Kentucky.
Tax benefits were promised to a potential tenant, and even the real estate listing for the building touted the town’s willingness to attract industry, saying Vanceburg is “willing to do anything within reason to induce a company to come in.”[8]
The shoe factory during its tenure as an army surplus store.
In 1953, the building was sold, but not to another manufacturer, as the city leaders hoped. Instead, L.V. Marks and Sons Company sold the building to Lewis County native and Vanceburg resident Karl Kegley. A new chapter for the Vanceburg Shoe Factory building began.
Apparently. the military surplus business and the radio industry complemented one another.
Kegley, a Lewis County native, moved his military surplus business into the building, where it flourished until 1991. Declining health forced Kegley to close the business, and the building transferred to another local businessman, Glenn Bannister, who operated a lumber liquidation store in the structure until 2002.
Facing northeast, looking at the south elevation of section two, with the west elevation of section three at right.
I documented the Vanceburg Shoe Factory late in the spring of 2017. A light drizzle fell all morning, and amidst the greenery sprawling across the brick, I couldn’t help but think how this crumbling building, seen by many in the community as an eyesore (understandably) as it lurched toward its end, helped shape Vanceburg in the first half of the 20th century.
Men and women found jobs that allowed them to stay in Lewis County. Their wages went back into the local economy. The factory building was a source of pride – built by Vanceburg, it had sustained the town for 20 years.
Those ordinary buildings, shadowed in disuse and broken glass, should never be dismissed. The stories held by the walls – even if those walls teeter and lean preciously – are so important.
[1] Ron D. Bryant, “Vanceburg,” in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John Kleber. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1991), 918.
[2] S.G. Hills, “Lewis County,” in the Fourteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Statistics of the State of Kentucky, 1900-1901. (Louisville, Kentucky: The George G. Fetter Printing Company, 1901), 185.
[3] “Shoe Factory Razed by Fire at Augusta.” The Courier Journal, September 12, 1921. Page 9.
[4] http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tripm&id=I43
[5] “WLB Orders 2 Kentucky Firms to Raise Wages.” The Courier-Journal, Friday, December 18, 1944. Page 7.
[6] “200 Vanceburg Shoemakers, Jobless, Offered to War Effort.” The Courier Journal, January 3, 1945. Page 1, Section 2.
[7] “Shoe Company to Close Plant at Vanceburg.” The Courier-Journal, Friday, June 24, 1949. Page 32.
[8] Philip Harsham. “Vanceburg Offers a Building, Tax Bait, Lots of Labor.” The Courier Journal, March 1, 1953. Page 41.
[4] Harsham., March 1, 1953.
[4] Philip Harsham. “Vanceburg Offers a Building, Tax Bait, Lots of Labor.” The Courier Journal, March 1, 1953. Page 41.
[1] “Shoe Factory Razed by Fire at Augusta.” The Courier Journal, September 12, 1921. Page 9.
Thanks again for raising my consciousness about buildings I might never have noticed or appreciated before.
Thank you for reading!
I remember many days walking by this old building as a child. I would walk into town from my grandmother’s house on route 8 to town in the late 70s early 80s. I use to gaze up at that building each time and wonder about it . My parents had told me about the building.
Thank you for reading – I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about the building.
My brother forwarded this very interesting story. I worked for Mr. Kegley at WKKS in the late 60s-early 70s while in high school.
Thanks for stories like this. God bless
Rick Hughes
Maysville, KY
Thank you so much for reading!
Thanks for the information. I grew up in Vanceburg and knew some of the history of the old shoe factory. Now I know the rest of the story. I visited the electronic surplus store several times in the 70’s to buy canvas equipment bags to use as gadget bags.
Thank you for reading!