Historic Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog Plant

By John Oharenko and Homan Arthington Foundation

Located on the site of the original Sears Tower, the historic Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog plant is one of the nation s most unique landmarks. Representing American ingenuity at its best, Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald combined technology, commerce, and social science with bricks and mortar to build the World s Largest Store on Chicago s West Side. Completed in 1906, the plant housed nearly every conceivable product of the time: clothing, jewelry, furniture, appliances, tools, and more. The complex employed 20,000 people, and merchandise orders were processed and delivered by rail within the same day. During the first two decades of the 20th century, almost half of America s families shopped the over 300 million catalogs published in that era. WLS (World s Largest Store) Radio broadcasted the Gene Autrey show from the top of the tower, and the first Sears retail store opened here on Homan Avenue and Arthington Street. In 1974, Sears moved to the current Sears Tower. Thanks to many individuals who fought to save these architecturally and historically important treasures, the administration building, the original Sears Tower, the catalog press-laboratory building, and the powerhouse remain today. There are currently plans for redeveloping these buildings into housing, office, and retail space. A new Homan Square Community Center stands on the site of the merchandise building.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Mar 29, 2006
• ISBN: 9781439616642

John Oharenko

John Oharenko is a veteran real estate financier, investor, author, and lecturer. Over his thirty-year career, John financed in excess of three billion dollars of various types of income-producing real estate including apartments, industrial, retail, office, hospitality, and land ventures. He also personally invests in multifamily and commercial properties. John authored three books and over one hundred articles on real estate investing and Chicago history. He lectures nationally on real estate investing and has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Journal of Property Management, Appraisal Journal, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. John is a founding member of the Real Estate Capital Institute and an active member of the Urban Land Institute. John holds a master’s degree in real estate appraisal and investment analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an undergraduate degree in business from DePaul University. John’s childhood experiences growing up in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, military school, and martial arts training have greatly influenced his investment philosophy.

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INTRODUCTION

Nothing more clearly dramatized the metamorphosis of Sears Roebuck from a promotional circus to a great institution than the new building complex. The newspaper and magazine writers were exhilarated by a tour. Sears Roebuck seemed the very symbol of the new technology and efficiency of the new century. It seemed a colossus of distribution. It became the pride of Chicago.

—Cecil Hoge Sr., The First Hundred Years are the Toughest, 1988

The story of Sears, Roebuck and Co. spans more than a century and reinforces the foundations of modern life in the United States. Sears is truly one of America’s great retail icons, and much of its fame and fortune is tied to the original catalog plant built on Chicago’s West Side in 1906. The facility served as the company’s world headquarters until the firm moved into the current Sears Tower—the tallest building in North America—in 1973.

When Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald began construction on their West Side Chicago headquarters in the early 1900s, they could never have realized the lasting impact they would make on 100 years of neighborhood history. The North Lawndale community, surrounding the intersection of Homan Avenue and Arthington Street, became home to one of the world’s great retailing empires.

The facilities constructed to support the growth of this enterprise were both a crowning achievement and physical proof of a world-class organization. The Sears complex was a bold statement of commerce, demonstrating the harmony of raw efficiency with architecture. The facility handled all the demands of the largest scale of retailing including printing catalogs, managing client relations, processing orders, some manufacturing, strategic planning, and research.

Spanning nearly seven decades of service, the plant was home to many great ideas and concepts including, but not limited to, the following: the original Sears Tower and Catalog Printing Facilities (1906), one of the first corporate profit-sharing programs (1916), WLS Radio (1924), Sears’s first retail outlet (1926), Allstate Insurance (1931), and the Homart Development Company (1959). And thanks to Sears’s commitment to Chicago and North Lawndale, the complex was not abandoned after the company moved.

Today, much of the complex exists as proof of the company’s ingenuity, creativity—and ultimately—its success. The North Lawndale neighborhood is taking advantage of the old Sears district for its own purposes. Under the new name of Homan Square, many of the same principles of greatness and harmony are shaping a renewed community, which is making its own national impact. The complex continues as a thriving focal point of Chicago’s West Side and includes many of the original structures, along with over 300 homes and a state-of-the-art community center.

This volume will highlight the accomplishments of Sears, Roebuck and Co. at its original West Side Chicago headquarters. It will also tell the developing story of Homan Square and its creative reuse of physical structures.

The team of founder Richard Sears and president Julius Rosenwald proved an ideal blend of talents for creating remarkable commercial success. Sears was an entrepreneurial promoter with an uncanny knack for writing advertising copy that appealed to rural Americans. He lacked an understanding of effective distribution and organizational management, however. Julius Rosenwald, with a strong moral character, understood how to blend labor and materials within a highly efficient corporate environment. He combined Sears’s promotional flair with a moneyback guarantee.

This entrepreneurial pairing created a 13-fold growth of the fledgling mail-order business during the final five years of the 19th century. Sales grew from $750,000 a year in 1895 to $10 million in 1900. The organization therefore needed to build a distribution and operations facility that could handle such staggering growth and deliver on the promise of complete customer satisfaction. In other words, Sears needed buildings literally constructed on a foundation of trust.

The company hired the finest architects, planners, builders, and craftsman. Every effort was made to visually blend the commercial structures to the surrounding parks and boulevards, and the new and residential district of North Lawndale. Architects Nimmons and Fellows had just finished refining Italianate Renaissance architecture (San Minato in Florence, Tuscany) with the practical principles of the Chicago School. Construction began in earnest in 1905. The scale of work is astonishing even by today’s standards. Some 7,000 artisans and laborers were working on the building at one time. And 353,000 bricks were laid within eight hours.

According to builder Theodore Starrett in an article in the April 1906 edition of the Architectural Record, in one instance, workers nearly ran out of materials, then immediately confiscated a train engine and ran without orders 15 miles to the transfer point, where the cars of brick were waiting. On another occasion, a flat car ran off the track where a wall was to be constructed. The