Sears Crosstown in Memphis: From Catalogues to a Concourse

When it opened in 1927, Sears Crosstown, now Crosstown Concourse, was the southeastern regional warehouse and distribution center for the Sears Catalogue mail-order empire. Each day, more than forty-five thousand orders were processed by more than 1,500 workers. As a result, Sears Crosstown became known locally as the Wish Building. For more than half a century, the iconic building and its surrounding neighborhood flourished until the decline of Sears in the 1980s. For decades, the once dyn...