The First Sears Store 

After selling merchandise from catalogs for a number of years, Sears and Roebuck opened its first store building in Chicago on February 2 (Groundhog Day), 1925. The company had already had an interesting history.

Richard Sears worked in North Redwood, Minnesota, as an agent for the railroad. An impressive shipment of watches came through, but the local jeweler refused them, so Sears bought them and resold them to other station agents for a profit. He ordered more and began selling them through mail-order catalogs. A year later he moved to Chicago where Alvah Roebuck joined him in the business and they expanded.

The first Sears catalog had been published in 1888. But the two partners renamed the company Sears, Roebuck, & Company and began to diversify. Farmers who had been used to buying from a limited selection of goods at inflated prices on credit especially welcomed the catalogs. By 1895, the catalog had grown to 532 pages. In 1906, Sears opened the first tower building to house its catalog sales. The first retail store came on this day in 1925, and many more soon followed.

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