TIME MACHINE: Sanford’s started business in Iowa City in 1851, became part of state history

The state of Iowa was only five years old in 1851 when state legislators recruited William Lee, a book binder in St. Louis, to come to Iowa City. Lee's move came after search for someone to bind fledgling Iowa's new legal code came up empty.

Lee set up his bindery in the shadow of the Capitol building and expanded his little shop by adding quill pens and paper. His business prospered and his son, James, became an associate. In 1870, George A. Mullin became an employee.

Before dying in 1871, Lee passed on his principles of public service in retail to Mullin. James Lee and Mullin became partners until 1879, when Mullin and G.W. Smith bought all the stock of the company.

While Mullin and Smith expanded the bindery-stationery store with a bookstore, they also were keeping a close eye on the expansion of railroads to the west. While the little store was selling copies of Aesop's Fables, Pilgrims Progress, the Blue Black Speller and McGuffey's Reader, its owners were deciding that the railroad connections in Cedar Rapids were better.

In 1883, the firm, now Smith, Mullin and Vorhees, moved north to a location at First Avenue and Third Street in Cedar Rapids. Trade was expanding and the rail connections were vital. It didn't hurt that Cedar Rapids was growing rapidly.

In 1888, Smith left the company, followed four years later by Vorhees. Mullin, as sole owner of the George A. Mullin Co., moved the store to a site where the Roosevelt now stands. School, home and industrial supplies were added to the store's lines of merchandise. Customers included T.M. Sinclair Packing Co., an oatmeal mill started by the Stuart family that later became Quaker Oats, and Merchants National Bank.

Morris Sanford, a young newspaperman from Independence, came to Cedar Rapids in 1896 in hopes of getting a job with the Cedar Rapids Republican. When that fell through, he went to work for Mullin. In 1901, the firm was incorporated and Sanford became a stockholder. Mullin erected a six-story fireproof building at 219 Second St. SE that bore his name in 1912. The store operated from there until 1933.

According to a Gazette article written in 1951 noting the company's centennial, 'When he (Sanford) came into the store, Mullin showed him some pounce boxes - boxes filled with pounce for blotting. The day of the finely powdered abrasive long since had passed, but the boxes were still kept as curios.

'But there were a lot of items which Morris Sanford sold across the counter and on his sales trips about town that today would seem equally as antiquated as the pounce box.

'Mr. Sanford began, for instance, in the era of the letter press. And what is a letter press? Well the letter press and the letter books of thin tissues were the forerunners of the carbon paper era.

'The two items, the book and the press, provided the 'copy,” the record a firm might want to keep of its own letters.

'The letters, written by hand, were penned for the most part in Arnold's ink, an English ink which was purple in color. The original copy was placed in the letter press book with a blanket under it and over it. Moisture was applied and then the book was closed and placed in the letter press. Turning the screw on the press applied the pressure which copied the original letter into the letter book.”

Sanford was one of Walter A. Sheaffer's first customers in 1913. Sheaffer convinced Sanford that he had a practical, self-filling fountain pen, and Sanford placed an order. The order was one of two filled on the first day of business for the Fort Madison pen company.

Sanford bought the business from Mullin in 1917 and changed the name in 1920. Morris Sanford Co. was one of the largest stationery wholesaler-retailers in the state. The store moved to its last home, the Wilcox Building at 215 Third Ave. SE, in 1933.

The store employed 60 people in 1951, its 100th year. It was one of the top retail outlets for America's book publishers. With 56 years under his belt, Sanford commented that business had changed considerably in that time. 'Fifty years ago we knew the rules for the conduct of a successful business and could make our plans. Nowadays we can only guess at it.”

James M. Morse joined his grandfather in the business in 1955.

Sanford stayed active at the store into his 90s. He treated his 91st birthday, May 31, 1966, like any other day of the previous 70 years by going to the store. There a photographer caught him in his office, surrounded by intermixed photos of dignitaries and family members.

Morris Sanford died Oct. 17, 1970, at age 95.

James Morse was stricken with polio in 1976 and his father, H. Hamilton Morse, stepped in to help out. By 1978, father and son announced the sale of the business.

The Morris Sanford Co. was sold to family friends Peter and Joan Bailey in October 1978. The store, which employed 44 at that time, retained the Morris Sanford name.

In 1980, Wilcox Co., which owned the building, sold it to Harold Wendorf and Charles Loomis Jr. Wendorf was chairman of the board and CEO of Killian's department store. Killian's took over the second and third floors for retail and storage space. Killian's already used the fourth floor for storage. Sanford's continued to occupy the first floor and basement and Boyson Jewelry Co. continued to operate on part of the first floor. Their leases ran until June 1983.

The building was demolished in August 1988 to make way for the Town Centre.