[SIZE=3][/SIZEBuying a watch in 1880 - history you probably didn't know!
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> If you were in the market for a watch in 1880, would you know where to get one? You would go to a store, right?
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> Well, of course you could do that, but if you wanted one that was cheaper and a bit better than most of the store watches, you went to the train station!
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> Sound a bit funny?
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> Well, for about 500 towns across the northern United States, that's where the best watches were found.
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> Why were the best watches found at the train station?
> The railroad company wasn't selling the watches, not at all.
> The telegraph operator was.
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> Most of the time the telegraph operator was located in the railroad station because the telegraph lines followed the railroad tracks from town to town.
> It was usually the shortest distance and the right-of-ways had already been secured for the rail line.
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> Most of the station agents were also skilled telegraph operators and that was the primary way that they communicated with the railroad.
> They would know when trains left the previous station and when they were due at their next station.
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> And it was the telegraph operator who had the watches.
> As a matter of fact, they sold more of them than almost all the stores combined for a period of about 9 years.
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> This was all arranged by "Richard", who was a telegraph operator himself. He was on duty in the North Redwood, Minnesota train station one day when a load of watches arrived from the East. It was a huge crate of pocket watches. No one ever came to claim them.
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> So Richard sent a telegram to the manufacturer and asked them what they wanted to do with the watches.
> The manufacturer didn't want to pay the freight back, so they wired Richard to see if he could sell them.
> So Richard did.
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> He sent a wire to every agent in the system asking them if they wanted a cheap, but good, pocket watch.
> He sold the entire case in less than two days and at a handsome profit.
> That started it all.
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> He ordered more watches from the watch company and encouraged the telegraph operators to set up a display case in the station offering high quality watches for a cheap price to all the travelers.
> It worked!
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> It didn't take long for the word to spread and, before long, people other than travelers came to the train station to buy watches.
> Richard became so busy that he had to hire a professional watch maker to help him with the orders.
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> That was Alvah.
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> And the rest is history as they say.
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> The business took off and soon expanded to many other lines of dry goods.
> Richard and Alvah left the train station and moved their company to Chicago -- and it's still there.
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> YES, IT'S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT that for a while in the 1880's, the biggest watch retailer in the country was at the train station.
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> It all started with a telegraph operator: Richard Sears and his partner Alvah Roebuck!
> ]