[GreenKeys] OT: telegraph operators and watches OT

[hwhall at compuserve.com]

 >Bet You Didn't Know that
That was a great story, in the style of the great Paul Harvey. 
"And now," as he often & famously said, "you know the rest...of the story."

 Wayne

WB4OGM


-----Original Message-----
From: Don Robert House <62.5milliamps at gmail.com>
To: greenkeys <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wed, Nov 20, 2013 9:04 pm
Subject: [GreenKeys] OT: telegraph operators and watches OT

 
 
 
 
  Cheap watches, cool story (Interesting bit of trivia) 
 
 
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 were the best watches found at the train station? 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-ways had already been secured for the rail line. 
 
Most of the station agents were also skilled telegraph operators and   
that was the primary way that 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 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 watch maker   
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 1880's, the   
biggest watch retailer in the country was at the train station. It all   
started with a telegraph operator: Richard Searsand his partner Alvah   
Roebuck! 
 

  
 
 
 
 
 
Bet You Didn't Know that 
 
 
 
 
 

  
 
 
 
 
 
 

  
 
 
 
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