Initially, he bought a shipment of watches that a local jeweler refused to sign for. He established a side business selling the watches to other station agents before quit his railway job a few months later and established the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis.
In 1887, Sears moved his watch-selling business from Minneapolis to Chicago and hired watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck to assist him. While Roebuck's name would remain with the company for decades, ill health forced his retirement around the turn of the century.
Julius Rosenwald, a Chicago clothing merchant who became a partner in the firm in 1895, directed its rapid growth, expanding into new products and ever-broader territory.
By 1906, when it first issued stock to the public, Sears became the first major US retailer to sell its stock in an initial public offering, the company was capitalized at $40 million, had about 9,000 employees, and was approaching $50 million in annual sales.
The company built a massive Chicago distribution complex in 1906, which occupied three million square feet of floor space. In 1909, Rosenwald took over as president of the company. Rosenwald was able to save Sears from the brink of bankruptcy by pledging $21 million of his personal fortune and other assets to save the company.
In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States.
History of Sears
