Sears

1966 - Lindquist opened a Sears Catalog Merchant Store at 504 1st Street. The store sold a few items directly, but mainly served as a place to place orders from the Sears catalog and to pick up ordered items. Another note says the store was opened by Al Isakson who sold it to Elsie Ableman in 1970.

1971 June 14-19: moving sale at 504 1st St location.

In summer of 1971 the store moved to 327 1st Street where it operated through 1993.

1971-06-25-26: operated by Lee & Elsie Ableman. The new space will add more display space and provide for a larger Freight receiving room.

1974: The Ablemans sold to Don & Pat Smith

In the 1990s, UPS, FedEx, DHL, and USPS all delivered packages directly to homes at a reasonable rate and almost everyone had a phone to place orders directly to Sears. The need for the catalog store diminished and it closed April 1993.

Customers had to drive to one of several Sears Stores in Spokane or to the catalog store off Freya to shop.

In 2006, Dan Hilton felt there was a need to have access to Sears products in Cheney as Sears closed some store locations and reduced the inventory of others in Spokane.

The Sears Hometown Store carries a variety of appliances, bedding, BBQs, lawnmowers, televisions, etc. It is also possible to order items from Sears online and have them delivered for free to the outlet store.

By 2018 Sears no longer had a presence in Spokane, but small outlet stores like the one in Cheney still served rural populations, though the managers added a side business of selling wood shed buildings as income supplement. Support and product from the corporation continued to dwindle which didn’t help the manager’s ability to serve customers.

2022-02 - Sears outlet store in Cheney closed.