Posted on 05/17/2016 12:12:08 PM PDT by PROCON
Not long ago, the Sears, Roebuck and Co. mail-order catalog was the ultimate marketplace, much like Amazon is today. You could even buy a house straight from the catalog. Just pick out the home you like, and voila, Sears would deliver it just for you. (The best Amazon can do is either a DVD box set or houses that, uh, would have some size and space issues for most people.)
These Sears homes weren't cheap low-end houses. Many of them were built using the finest quality building materials available during that time. It's not uncommon to find Sears homes today with oak floors, cypress siding, and cedar shingles. As with most old homes, the tough part is finding one that has been well maintained, and with the youngest of Sears homes going now eight decades old, they all require a significant amount of care. From 1908 to 1940, Sears sold between 70,000 to 75,000 homes, so there are plenty out there, you just need to know where to look.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Actually, it was automation that took the esprit out of the post office.
Once the computers and machines took over the process became robotic and mundane.
Thanks for the great website.
What I get a kick out of is the homes that I looked at had just one bathroom.
We are all so spoiled now.
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Go to Sears Robuck American Foursquare
and check out The Hamilton.
LOVE my HOME...2 other owners before us... we have been here for almost 50 years.
Fireplace replaced after the Sylmar earthquake. A minor kitchen remodel and bathroom upgraded but all else is the same.
I remember the ‘52-’53 Kaiser Henry J, badged Allstate, from 1959 (I was 10). A neighbor had a Nash Metropolitan and Henry J, but left them tarped in a garage, while he drove his Caddy Convertible Series 62.
president Nixion’s childhood home was one of those homes. you can tour it at the Nixion library.
Snowmobiles, too!
http://192.185.93.157/~wishbook/1966_Sears_Wishbook/images/1966_SearsChristmas_Page426.jpg
Those were good days. I got a cap gun on my sixth birthday and a BB gun when I was 10.
By 12 I had .22 rifle and a shotgun.
I bought one across the street from me to rehab and tinker with. Early twenties model called The Martha Washington, neat little 3br house.
Thank you!! LMAO!
Interesting! I didn’t know that the post office contracted out that function to the railroad. But it makes sense when you think about it. The focus was on providing superior service, not public employee union jobs.
Partly, but not totally a measure to address the decline of regular railroad service caused by union featherbedding.
My grandparents den had cypress paneling.
One of my rental properties is a Sears Mail Order house my parents bought to build on their lot for my Dad’s mother when she moved to California in 1953. They added a single car garage to the two bedroom one bath house, but the majority of it arrived on a flatbed truck. My Mom and Dad built it on a foundation they poured them selves over the next several months and did all the plumbing and wiring themselves. . . and the city building inspector said it was all done perfectly.
I just finished remodeling that house to bring it up to 2015 building and electrical codes. . . completely rewiring and upgrading the plumbing. The materials and construction standards offered by Sears and Roebuck houses were excellent and the plans for building them were very good, so good that anyone could do it if they had basic carpentry skills.
The expert who wrote the book says:
“Between 1908-1940, Sears sold 110,000 homes in about 370 different styles. (See note on styles.) Their sales records, promotional information, catalogs and other ephemera associated with the modern homes department was unceremoniously destroyed.”
Mine is a Sears bungalow, 1921, the first in the neighborhood. A slew followed.
ESL investments bought K-Mart and then bought Sears. The new company is Sears Holdings. The principal at ESL (Eddie Lampert) runs the company now, very poorly I might add. Sears Holdings is a dead man walking. Lampert has been busy the last several year spinning off everything of value to protect them from creditors when it eventually collapses.
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