[Accrs] Fwd: Buying a watch in 1880

[Alameda County Central Railroad Society]

Hi Dean:

A very inter4esting story.



Lee



-----Original Message-----
From: Alameda County Central Railroad Society <accrs at mail.accrs.org>
To: ACCRS - All <accrs at mail.accrs.org>
Sent: Tue, Jan 31, 2017 5:28 pm
Subject: [Accrs] Fwd: Buying a watch in 1880

Message From: Dean & Margaret Lewis  lewis2 at earthlink.net
I found this very interesting.  
Read tothe end to get the whole point. 



Buyinga watch in 1880. 


If youwere in the market for a watch in 1880, would you know where to get one?
You wouldgo to a store, right?


Well, ofcourse you could do that, but if you wanted one that was cheaper and abit better than most of the store watches, you went to the trainstation!Sounda bit funny?


Well, forabout 500 towns across the northern United States , that's where thebest watches were found.


Why werethe best watches found at the train station?


Therailroad company wasn't selling the watches, not at all.
Thetelegraph operator was.


Most ofthe time the telegraph operator was located in the railroad stationbecause the telegraph lines followed the railroad tracks from town totown.


It wasusually the shortest distance and the right-of-ways had already beensecured for the rail line.


Most ofthe station agents were also skilled telegraph operators and that wasthe primary way that they communicated with the railroad.


They wouldknow when trains left the previous station and when they were due attheir next station.


And it wasthe telegraph operator who had the watches.


As amatter of fact, they sold more of them than almost all the storescombined for a period of about 9 years.


This wasall arranged by "Richard", who was a telegraph operator himself. He wason duty in the North Redwood, Minnesota train station one day when aload of watches arrived from the East. It was a huge crate of pocketwatches. No one ever came to claim them.


So Richardsent a telegram to the manufacturer and asked them what they wanted todo with the watches.


Themanufacturer didn't want to pay the freight back, so they wired Richardto see if he could sell them.


So Richarddid.


He sent awire to every agent in the system asking them if they wanted a cheap,but good, pocket watch.


He soldthe entire case in less than two days and at a handsome profit.


Thatstarted it all.


He orderedmore watches from the watch company and encouraged the telegraphoperators to set up a display case in the station offering high qualitywatches for a cheap price to all the travelers.


It worked!


It didn'ttake long for the word to spread and, before long, people other thantravelers came to the train station to buy watches.


Richardbecame so busy that he had to hire a professional watch maker to helphim with the orders.


That wasAlvah.


And therest is history as they say.


Thebusiness took off and soon expanded to many other lines of dry goods.


Richardand Alvah left the train station and moved their company to Chicago --and it's still there.


YES, IT'SA LITTLE KNOWN FACT  that for a while in the 1880's, the biggest watchretailer in the country was at the train station.


It allstarted with a telegraph operator: Richard Sears and his partner AlvahRoebuck!


Bet YouDidn't Know That! 
OK, Maybeyou did; I didn't! 







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