A Bit Of Railroad History

If you lived in the northern United States in the 1880's, the best, and cheapest place to buy a good watch was at the train station! The railroad company wasn't in the business of selling watches, but the telegraph operators who worked there were. The telegraph lines followed the railroad tracks from town to town across the northeast, so watches were sold at the train stations. For a period of 9 years during the 1880's, more watches were sold at train stations than all other stores combined.
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 Sears, 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. He 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 Sears became so busy that he had to hire a professional watch maker to help him with the orders. The watchmakers name was Alvah Roebuck.

A year later they formed a partnership, and Sears Roebuck and Company opened its doors. As they say, the rest is history. Their first catalogue was released in 1896. It's amazing that a business that developed out of a load of uncollected pocket watches became one of the largest corporations in America. Just a bit of railroad history for all of you.