If you were in the market for a watch in1880, 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 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. At the train station. But not for the reason you might
think. The railroad company wasn't selling the watches, not at all. The
telegraph operator was. And 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. Also, most
of the station agents were 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 station.
And it was the telegraph operator who had the watches. As a matter of fact,
they sold more of them than almost all of the stores combined for a period
of about 9 years. And mostly, this was 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. 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. Richard did that. 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. He ordered more watches from the watch
company and encouraged the telegraph operators to set up a display case in
the station and start offering high quality watches for a cheap price to all
the travelers. That worked! It didn't take long for the word to spread to
all kinds of people; and before long, people other than travelers came to
the train station to buy watches. Richard got so busy he had to hire a
professional watchmaker to help him with the orders. He did, and that
person 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. IT'S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT that for a while in the1880's, the biggest
watch retailer in the country was at the train station. It all started with
a telegraph operator, Richard Sears, and his partner: Alvah Robuck!