Watches

If you were shopping for a watch in 1880, would you have known where to get one? You would, of course, go to a store, right? Well, of course you could do that, but if you wanted an inexpensive watch that was a bit better than most store watches, one ventured to the train station.

That sounds strange, doesn’t it? For about 500 towns across the northern United States, that’s where the best watches were found.

Why do you think that one could buy the best watches at a train station? The railroad company wasn’t selling the watches; not at all. The telegraph operator was selling them.

One needs to picture America in the late 1880s. There were only 38 states then and about 65% of the population lived in rural areas.

Richard Sears was a railroad agent and telegraph operator in a small town in Minnesota. That job left him with 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 to broaden his income. He called the company, purchased the watches, and sold them at a nice profit to other station agents up and down the line. He then ordered more for resale.

Sears encouraged the other telegraph operators up and down the rail line to set up display cases in their train stations offering high quality watches for a low price to all travelers.

Sears, with the help of the other railroad agents, sold more watches than almost all the stores combined for a period of nine years. In 1886 Sears began the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minnesota.

The following year Sears moved his business to Chicago and advertised for a watchmaker with references who could furnish tools. Guess who answered this ad? Alvah C. Roebuck told Sears that he knew watches and brought a sample of his work to prove it.

Of course, Sears hired him and thus began an association of two young men, both in their twenties, that was to make their names famous. In 1893, the corporate name of the firm became Sears, Roebuck and Company.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mail-order companies were the answer to farmers’ prayers. Thanks to volume buying, to the railroads and post office, and later to rural free delivery and parcel post, they offered a happy alternative to the high-priced rural stores.

Years later the company adopted the motto “Shop at Sears and Save.”

Richard Sears was the guiding genius of the new mail-order firm. He knew farmers, understood their needs and desires. While the earliest catalogs featured only watches and jewelry, the new firm by 1895 was producing a 532-page catalog offering shoes, women’s garments, wagons, fishing tackle, stoves, furniture, china, musical instruments, saddles, buggies, bicycles, baby carriages and glassware.

Richard Sears’ talents were selling, advertising and merchandising. Organizing the company so it could handle orders was left to Chicago clothing manufacturer, Julius Rosenwald, who bought into the company in 1895.

Isn’t it amazing how the sale of watches, intended for a jeweler, was the beginning of a company that grew into a household name? Did you or your parents ever order from Sears? I imagine all of us have something in or around our homes that was purchased from Sears. The catalog might be gone but Sears is still around!