[CW] I always knew they liked Morse code and radio!

[Bill KA8VIT]

As I read this I was hearing Paul Harvey's voice... !

And, now you know, the rest of the story.

Thanks, it was a great story.

73 - Bill KA8VIT



>     On 10/29/2021 10:03 PM D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>     If you were in the market for a watch in 1880, would you know where to
>     get one? You would go to a store, right? Well, of course, you could do
>     that, but if you wanted one that was cheaper and a bit better than
>     most of the store watches, you went to the train station!
>      
>     Sound a bit funny?
>      
>     Well, for about 500 towns across the northern United States, that's
>     where the best watches were found. Why?
>     The railroad company wasn't selling the watches, not at all.
>     The telegraph operator was.
>      
>     Most of the time the telegraph operator was located in the railroad
>     station because the telegraph lines followed the railroad tracks from
>     town to town.
>      
>     It was usually the shortest distance and the right-of-way had already
>     been secured for the rail line.
>     Most of the station agents were also skilled telegraph operators and
>     it was the primary way they communicated with the railroad.
>     They would know when trains left the previous station and when they
>     were due at their next station.
>      
>     And it was the telegraph operator who had the watches.
>     As a matter of fact, they sold more of them than almost all the stores
>     combined for a period of about 9 years.
>      
>     This was all started and arranged by "Richard", who was a telegraph operator himself.
>     He was on duty in the North Redwood, Minnesota train station one day
>     when a load of watches arrived from the East. It was a huge crate of
>     pocket watches. No one ever came to claim them.
>      
>     So Richard sent a telegram to the manufacturer and asked them what
>     they wanted to do with the watches.
>     The manufacturer didn't want to pay the freight back, so they wired
>     Richard to see if he could sell them. So Richard did.
>     He sent a wire to every agent in the system asking them if they wanted
>     a cheap, but good, pocket watch.
>      
>     He sold the entire case in less than two days and at a handsome profit.
>     That started it all. He ordered more watches from the watch company
>     and encouraged the telegraph operators to set up a display case in the
>     station offering high quality watches for a cheap price to all the
>     travelers.
>      
>     It worked!
>     It didn't take long for the word to spread and, before long, people
>     other than travelers came to the train station to buy watches. Richard
>     became so busy that he had to hire a professional watchmaker to help
>     him with the orders.
>      
>     That was Alvah.
>     And the rest is history as they say.
>     The business took off and soon expanded to many other lines of dry goods.
>     Richard and Alvah left the train station and moved their company to
>     Chicago -- and it's still there.
>      
>     YES, IT'S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT  that for a while in the 1880s, the
>     biggest watch retailer in the country was at the train station. It all
>     started with a telegraph operator: Richard Sears and partner Alvah
>     Roebuck!
>      
>     Bet You Didn't Know That!
>     OK, maybe you did; I didn't!
>      
>     Now that's History.
>      
>     And now...Sears has closed its doors.
> 
> 
====================================
Bill Chaikin, KA8VIT
Chief Radio Operator
WW2 Submarine USS COD SS-224 (NECO)
USS COD Amateur Radio Club - W8COD

ka8vit at ka8vit.com
http://ka8vit.com
http://www.usscod.org
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