Richard Warren Sears

Richard Warren Sears is the founder of Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Early Life
Richard W. Sears was born in 1863 in Stewartville, Minnesota. His parents were at one point wealthy but lost 50,000. At a young age he had to work and for a few years worked as a station agent before getting a box of watches and selling them to supplement his income. However some of the watches were broken and Sears did not have enough money to give refunds and did not know how to fix them.

R.W Sears Watch Company
Sears hired Alvah Roebuck who would fix the broken watches that he sold. The company moved to Minneapolis and in 1887 moved to Chicago. He sold the company in 1891.

Sears
In 1893 he founded Sears, Roebuck and Company with Alvah Roebuck. However in 1895 Roebuck left and was replaced with Julius Rosenwald and Aaron Nusbaum. However Sears bought out Aaron and it was him and Rosenwald. He was president of the company when he retired in 1908 due to poor health.

Death
Sears died due to Bright's Disease in 1914.