The full name of the company is Sears, Roebuck and Co. It was first started in 1886 by Richard Sears in a venture involving a rejected order of gold watches which proved successful enough for him to start the R.W. Sears Watch Company.
The following year, Sears moved his operations from Minneapolis to Chicago and put up a request in the newspaper for a watchmaker. An Indian man by the name of Alvah C. Roebuck, took up the ad, and was hired. The name of the company was changed in 1893 to its present name.
In 1895, Sears introduced its famous mail order catalog, and six years later had opened up its 2nd office in Dallas, Texas. By 1933 more than 400 stores were operating around the nation. Also during the 1930s, Sears had the Allstate Insurance Company subsidary.
Through the 1940s-1970s many changes and expansions making it one of the leading, if not top, retail contenders in the United States and expanded into Mexico and Canada. The store fell on hard times in the early part of the 1990s, and around 1995, an era ended with the termination of its famous mail order catalog. Today, however, Sears appears to be making a comeback.
Sources
http://academic.emporia.edu/smithwil/00spmg456/eja/pieschl.html
http://sears.com/