Sears bankruptcy and closures spark nostalgia in Louisville

As she got older, the dolls that she surrounded became dresses. When she was married, her husband, who worked at the Philip Morris cigarette factory, also made her purchases. The couple then bought his son's Craftsman tools from the same store. They also used Sears credit cards. "It's been with our family for years," she said. "We will miss it."

The announcement of this week's bankruptcy sparked an avalanche of memories among shoppers at Sears, opening the "Wish Book" catalog before Christmas, or purchasing Sears brands such as Kenmore appliances, jeans and more. for Toughskins children and DieHard batteries.

The stores have long been part of America's middle class. The company was often referred to as Amazonia at the time for its pioneering mail-order business or as a precursor to Wal-Mart for its network of physical stores. The fact that it was largely rejected by the pressure of both felt like an inevitable irony of changing times.

"Amazon kills everyone," said 62-year-old Shelia Pitts, who has walked under a sign touting 125 years of Sears history, explaining that some stores have been feeling more and more calm in recent years. "Before, everyone was at Sears, you met people. Not anymore."

Sears, which also contributed to the growth of suburban shopping centers, remained the country's largest retailer until Wal-Mart surpassed it in 1991.

A look back: When Sears downtown opened, it was the 1929 Amazon. It was huge.

Mark Cohen, a professor of retail studies at Columbia University Business School, said the mismanagement also prevented Sears from becoming a major online retailer that could have rivaled Amazon.

Since 2010, the year of the last profitable year for Sears, sales have dropped by $ 11.7 billion, closing more than 2,800 stores in the last 13 years, CNN reported.

After closing the Louisville area stores at the Oxmoor Center and at the Green Tree Mall in Clarksville, Indiana, Sears announced Monday the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company's officials announced that they would close 142 other unprofitable stores. This will no longer leave traditional Sears stores in Kentucky, but there will still be a few smaller Sears Hometown and Outlet stores.

Tom Owen, an archivist and historian at the University of Louisville, said Sears had played an important role in Louisville's history, driving new consumer habits.

"At first, his role in Kentucky was a mail-order shop with an iconic catalog" particularly important for rural residents who can buy clothes and furniture, Owen said. Its influence has increased starting with the construction of a "department store become wild". from tools to clothes to furniture, he said.

Four years after opening its first store in Chicago in 1925, Sears, Roebuck & Co. opened the first Sears store in Louisville at Eighth Street and Broadway. In 1962, the region had four stores, including Okolona, ​​St. Matthews and New Albany, in Indiana.

"I remember that even in the late '40s and early' 50s, I'd walked out the door of Broadway and Eighth thinking it was intense – the stalls, the activities, the crowds." , did he declare.

Also: Sears is in trouble: what buyers need to know before bankruptcy

Sears' influence in Louisville has gone beyond buying. Julius Rosenwald, who headed Sears in 1909, created a foundation to help fund schools for African-American youth, including seven in Jefferson County, Owen said.

In 1978, Sears opened in Okolona's Jefferson Mall, which was close to one million square feet and had anchors such as Shillito's and JCPenney.

On Monday afternoon, the announcement of bankruptcy and closure affected Sears employees at the Jefferson Mall. A store manager sent questions back to the head office. "We are not supposed to say anything," she said.

Cashier Donnell Johnson, 18, said in front of the store that he employs a mix of workers, teenagers in the short term to older and long-term workers, and that they came from 39, learn about closures and bankruptcy in newspapers. He said he did not know that his store was chosen to close, and he did not know how long he would hold the position he had been in for a few months.

Sears Holdings, which owns Sears and Kmart and still had about 68,000 employees on Monday, has announced plans to stay in business with the remaining stores. Other retailers, such as Toys "R" Us, do not survive the restructuring, their future remains uncertain.

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At the entrance to Sears, at one end of the mall, in front of the Plucky Ducky claw machine, the massage chairs and the JoAnn Fabric store, Ammie Hansford and her husband, William Thompson, both aged 40, stood near a Sears table bearing the inscription "Now in rental".

They were waiting for their 16-year-old daughter who had come for her first day of work as a cashier. It was not clear if she still had a job.

Even though she said that they rarely bought there, aside from Black Friday, Hansford was no less nostalgic. "When I was younger, Sears was my grandmother's favorite store and it's sad to see it disappear," she said.

The two men turned away from the iconic blue Sears sign and headed to the other end of the mall to find job offers for their daughter.