Faultless Starch Company/Bon Ami Building

Faultless Starch Company was founded in the late nineteenth century and continues to operate within this historic building the company has owned for more than a hundred years. Both the business and building are among the oldest in the West Bottoms, and this building has been the home to the company since its last building, located just a block away, was lost in the West Bottoms flood of 1903. Like other area businesses, Faultless Starch chose to operate out of the West Bottoms due to its proximity to the railroad which supported their need to sell and ship products all across the country. In 1971 Faultless Starch purchased the Bon Ami Company, merging to become Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company, as the company is known today.

In 1886, Frank Smith, cofounder of West Bottoms-based Smith and Moffatt Tea, Coffee, and Spice Company, died suddenly in an accident at the company headquarters at Santa Fe and 9th Street. On the encouragement of his uncle, a local banker, Major Thomas Graham Beaham bought Smith's shares of the company, taking over as co-owner and turning the company into Beaham and Moffatt. Faultless Starch was born in 1891, just a few years later, when Beaham bought the formula for a dry white starch from Harvey Bosworth, an area druggist. The new brand quickly took off, gaining popularity with housewives for how easy to use it was. It was also adapted to other uses by its customers as a treatment for skin irritations, a finish for embroidery and lace work, and as a baby powder.

Originally, Beaham and Moffatt sold Faultless Starch together through their tea and spice business, which they continued to operate out of the Santa Fe building. However, in 1898 Beaham decided to devote all his efforts to his new product, selling his shares in the spice company and running Faultless on his own.

Faultless Starch Company moved to its current location, a larger and more modern building, after the old building was damaged beyond repair in the 1903 floods. The building was designed by the local firm Shepard and Farrar, who later became known for the Charles Keith house in the Plaza area and the President Hotel and Deramus Building downtown. Its multiple entrances, loading docks, and location near the street and railroad tracks gave the business what it needed to quickly load goods onto trains for shipping across the country. The building also shares its minimal exterior decoration, simple rectangular shape, flat roof, and numerous large windows with other area buildings after the flood. Not only were they inexpensive to build this way, but city officials encouraged this kind of simple, sturdy construction after the loss of so many other buildings to floods and, later, fires.

From there, the company continued to grow in size. Starting around the turn of the century, John Nesbitt, a Texan salesman, attached brochures to the company's products with rubber bands, advertising Faultless Starch to what would become the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. This led to the spread of the company's popularity in the Southwest. After spreading across the rest of the country, it grew on the international level - today, the company sells its products in over twenty countries. In response to the growth of the company and its additions of new products, expansions were made to the building twice, once in the 1930s and once in the 1950s after another devastating flood. In the 1970s, the offices were moved to another building about a mile away to make room for manufacturing. These offices have moved twice since then, but the building on 8th street is still home to the manufacturing plant for the company's many products, as well as those of the acquired Bon Ami company.

Millstein, Cydney E. Faultless Starch Company Building - National Register of Historic Places Registration Form , Missouri State Parks. August 24th, 2001. Accessed October 21st, 2022. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Faultless%20Starch%20Co.%20Building.pdf.

ABOUT US - The story behind the starch, Faultless. Accessed October 21st, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20160419140419/https://faultless.com/about-us/.

Shepard & Wiser - architects of historic dimension, Sophian Plaza KC. December 17th, 2019. Accessed October 21st, 2022. https://www.sophianplazakc.com/blog/shepard-amp-wiser-architects-of-historic-dimension.