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
Joshua Sears Building Joshua Sears Building The Joshua Sears Building is a historic building in Kirkland, Washington located at the northwest corner of Market Street and Seventh Avenue, Kirkland's historic commercial core. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1891 by Boston philanthropist and capitalist, Joshua Sears, who was heavily invested in Peter Kirk's Great Western Iron and Steel Company and who planned to open a bank in town. As a result of the Panic of 1893, the steel mill and the bank never opened but the Sears building survives today as a reminder of what