Chicago "L" 2014, the "L" had an average of 752,734 passenger boardings each weekday, 486,267 each Saturday, and 359,777 each Sunday. In a 2005 poll, "Chicago Tribune" readers voted it one of the "seven wonders of Chicago", behind the lakefront and Wrigley Field, but ahead of Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), the Water Tower, the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The first "L", the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, began revenue service on June 6, 1892, when a steam locomotive pulling four wooden coaches, carrying more than a couple of dozen people, departed the
Merchandise Building forces with Sears-Roebuck & Co. of Chicago in forming a 50/50 ownership in a new company, Simpsons-Sears Limited. The new firm took control of Simpson's catalogue and mail-order business and would open new Sears-style department stores in markets not already served by Simpsons. It was seen as better suited to take on competition with the strong T. Eaton Co. catalogue business and to use Sears marketing principles to expand into smaller Canadian rural and suburban markets. The Toronto Mail Order Building complex - which eventually came to be known by the less cumbersome name of "the Mutual Street Building", continued