History of Sears Catalog Homes
Presentation to the Annandale History Club
1995
Maureen Galvin

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Maureen Galvin, current Wright County Historical Society curator, presented the history of Sears catalog homes which were sold 1908-1940. 

For more about Sears catalog homes, refer to www.searsarchives.com/homes.

1886 -- Richard W. Sears, a 23-year-old railroad station agent, began to sell watches by mail from North Redwood, Minnesota. 

1887 -- Sears moved to Chicago and hired Alvah C. Roebuck to repair customers' watches.  The two men became partners.

1893 -- Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck founded Sears, Roebuck and Co.  They sold many kinds of products, all by mail-order catalog.

1895 -- Alvah Roebuck (1864-1948) asked Richard Sears to buy his one-third ownership for $20,000.  Roebuck spent 45 years working in and out of the company. 

1895-1900 -- Building supplies were sold through Sears, Roebuck & Co. general catalog.

1900 -- During the early 1900s, Sears, Roebuck and Co. became the largest mail-order company in the world.

1906 -- Frank W. Kushel (formerly manager of the china department), took over the building supplies department and started shipping building supplies directly from the factory, thus saving storage costs.

1908 -- First specialty catalog issued for houses, The Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans.  The ready to assemble home kits were shipped to customers via railroad boxcar.   

1908-1940 -- Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold 70,000-75,000 homes through their mail-order Modern Homes program.

1908 -- Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) became president of Sears when Richard Sears retired. Rosenwald became a noted philanthropist. 

1914 -- Richard Warren Sears (1863-1914), founder of Sears, Roebuck & Co., retired in 1908 and died in 1914 at age 50. 

1925 -- Sears opened its first retail store in Chicago.  The company then established one store after another.

1930 -- Sears offered to merge with competitor Montgomery Ward, but the offer was turned down by Wards, which was in business from 1872 to 2001 (name revived as an online and catalog based retailer in 2004).    

1931 -- Sales from Sears retail stores topped the firm's mail-order sales for the first time.

1970s -- Name Roebuck dropped from the trade name of the stores, though not from the official name.

1974 -- 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago was completed.

1993 -- Sears stopped producing the general Big Book catalog.

2004 -- Kmart purchased Sears.