Richard Warren Sears: founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company
Susan Coleman Fennell
Contributor
Few people realize that Richard W. Sears, founder of the Sears and Roebuck financial empire, played a significant role in the early history of lumbering in Suwannee County, Fla.
Richard Warren Sears was born on Dec. 7, 1863, in Stewartville, Minn. He became a qualified telegrapher and worked several railroad jobs, starting as a freight engineer and train dispatcher.
In 1886, realizing the need of keeping railroad schedules, Sears began a small business selling pocket watches. He purchased a supply of watches and telegraphed agents up the line that he would sell the watches on the installment plan. Sales were so good the following year, that he moved his business to Chicago, the railroad hub of the Midwest. Through a newspaper advertisement for a jeweler to repair his returned watches, Sears met Alvah C. Roebuck. In 1893, they formed a corporate partnership, creating a general mail order business that bore the name Sears, Roebuck and Company.
Sears had sold lumber in his youth and was lumber conscious. He realized the white pine forests of the Northeastern United States were rapidly being depleted. Our southern yellow pine drew him to Florida in 1910.
Due to poor health, Thomas Dowling sold the Dowling Lumber Company, the Live Oak, Perry & Gulf Railroad Company, several saw mills and several hundred thousand acres of timberland in Suwannee, Taylor and Lafayette counties to Richard W. Sears. Sears changed the name of the business to Standard Lumber Company.
As the timber was cut, the lands were hardly worth payment of taxes. Sears decided to sell his cut-over lands on the installment plan. Lands were surveyed and cut-up into twenty- and forty-acre tracts. Over 5,000 acres was swamp land and practically worthless. A book value was placed at 25¢ per acre. One tract of 2,600 acres was sold for 26¢ per acre, a profit of 1¢ per acre. Another tract of 2,700 acres was sold for a profit of 38¢ per acre. This left the company with approximately 100,000 acres of good land. On Feb. 19, 1913, the corporation of Suwannee River Land Belt was formed with a capital of $200,000 with the Standard Lumber Company being the parent company. Both offices were located in Live Oak.
The Suwannee River Land Belt Company marketed cut over timberland in 20-acre tracts through the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The lots were sold on a monthly payment plan at $11 an acre - $5 down and $5 a month. During the first five years, more than 5,000 sales were made throughout the United States and Canada.
After Sears’ death in 1915, his widow, Anna L. Sears and her two sons expanded the operation of the Standard Lumber Company.
In general, times were good. A new mill and community were built in Hendry County adjacent to the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. The mill town was, appropriately named “Sears.” However, a contract with Florida Industrial Company to log $2.5 million of south Florida slash pine timber in Lee and Hendry counties spelled failure to the Standard Lumber Company. Soon the lumber market declined and became depressed. Following a lawsuit by the Florida Industrial Company, the Standard Lumber Company became insolvent. It was sold for nonpayment of taxes in 1936. When the company was finally dissolved, over 10,000 people had purchased Sears’ cutover timberland in Suwannee and neighboring counties.
Join us next week for more Suwannee County history!
Susan Coleman Fennell is a part of the Suwannee County Historical Commission & Museum located at 208 Ohio Avenue North in Live Oak. She may be reached at suwanneehistorical@gmail.com.