The other day, we told you about some mergers among big American department stores. One of them is Sears, which has joined with the discounter, K-Mart. And Sears deserves a story of its own, if only because it has opened its vast archives to the public, on the Internet, at www.searsarchives.com.

Sears was never one of the glittering downtown shopping palaces with several floors of merchandise and fabulous show windows. It was an every-town-USA kind of place. Until shopping malls came along, Sears was a fixture on Main Street, next to the hat shop or the ice cream parlor.

The company was founded in 1886 by Richard Sears, a Minnesota railway agent. He happened to buy a shipment of watches that a jeweler didn't want, and before long, he had opened his own watch company. Within ten years, Sears had expanded his product line, taken a partner, incorporated under the name Sears, Roebuck and Company, and offered a mail-order catalog.

In fact, Sears is probably best known for that Big Book, as it was called. The catalog had prices, specifications and little drawings of everything from boots to buggies to bathtub stoppers. You could even order a complete, pre-fabricated house from the Sears Catalog, in one of 447 styles.

Sears started a radio station in Chicago called WLS (for "world's largest store"). It sponsored a national beautiful-baby contest, established an insurance company and introduced the Discover credit card. The company's pioneer customer promise -- satisfaction guaranteed or your money back -- is still in force.

The Big Book is gone, but Sears still puts out specialty catalogs and a Christmas Wish Book. You can wish, but alas, Sears will no longer ship you a new house.