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Sears Holdings is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy after 125 years in business, closing a chapter in the company’s long-and-storied history. Founded in 1893 as Sears, Roebuck and Co., it’s been a long and slow fall for the department store chain over the last few decades.
Sears, which merged with Kmart in 2004, had a combined 355,000 employees and more than 3,500 stores in 2006. Its workforce totaled less than 90,000 across fewer than 900 shops at the beginning of 2018. Its stock, once close to $200 a share in April 2007, fell below $1 a share last month.
Click through the timeline to see how Sears became one of America’s most recognizable brands and what forces pushed it into decline.
— CNBC’s Adam Jeffery contributed to this report.