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 In
the Beginning
Picture America in the late 1880s. The states
were only 38 in number. Their total population was
58 million and about 65 percent of these people
lived in rural areas. Only a dozen or so cities
had 200,000 or more residents. And the yearly
national income was about $10 billion. This was
the scene when, one day in 1886, a Chicago jewelry
company shipped some gold-filled watches to an
unsuspecting jeweler in a Minnesota hamlet. Thus
started a chain of events that led to the founding
of Sears.
 Richard
Sears was an agent of the Minneapolis and St.
Louis railway station in North Redwood, Minnesota.
Sears job as station agent left him plenty of
spare time, so he sold lumber and coal to local
residents on the side to make extra money. Later,
when he received a shipment of watches - unwanted
by a neighboring Redwood Falls jeweler - he was
ready. Sears purchased them himself, sold the
watches at a nice profit to other station agents
up and down the line, and then ordered more for
resale.
In 1886 Sears began the R.W. Sears Watch Company
in Minneapolis.
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