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.