Sears, Roebuck and Company Complex Sears, Roebuck and Company Complex The Sears, Roebuck and Company Complex on the west side of Chicago, Illinois is where Sears, Roebuck conducted the bulk of its mail order operations between 1906 and 1993. It also served as the corporate headquarters until 1973, when the Sears Tower was completed. Of its original complex, only three buildings now survive, and have been adaptively rehabilitated to other uses. The complex was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, at which time it still included the 3-million square foot mail order plant, the world's largest commercial building when it was completed. That building
Sears history of the old company, celebrating the original 1892 incorporation, rather than the 1906 revision, as the start of the company. Sears' successful 1906 initial public offering (IPO) marks the first major retail IPO in American financial history and represented a coming of age, financially, of the consumer sector. The company traded under the ticker symbol S, and was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1924 to 1999. In 1906, Sears opened its catalog plant and the Sears Merchandise Building Tower in Chicago's West Side. The building was the anchor of what would become the massive Sears,