Sears Sears Sears, Roebuck and Company, colloquially known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in 1893, reincorporated (a formality for a history-making consumer sector initial public offering) by Richard Sears and new partner Julius Rosenwald in 1906. Formerly based at the Sears Tower in Chicago and currently headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, the operation began as a mail ordering catalog company and began opening retail locations in 1925. The first location was in Evansville, Indiana. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box
Metropolitan Tower (Chicago) White, the Metropolitan Tower was named the Straus Building when completed in 1924. Though it was the first building in Chicago with 30 or more floors, it was never officially designated Chicago's tallest building since the Chicago Temple Building, also completed in 1924, is taller by but has seven fewer floors. The Straus Building and the Chicago Temple Building were the first to take advantage of the 1923 zoning ordinance; before then, no building in Chicago could be taller than . The Metropolitan Tower was at one time called the Continental National Insurance Company Building (later Continental Center I). From