Sierra Trading Post launched in 1986 and ran its mail-order catalog business out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. The premise was simple and it worked: buy close-out and overstocked outdoor gear from manufacturers, pass the discount to customers, and ship it from a warehouse in the high plains. For two decades the catalog landed …

The Sears catalog ran for 105 years. When it was discontinued in January 1993, it was the longest-running general merchandise catalog in American retail history. At its peak in the mid-twentieth century, the Sears "Big Book" was the largest circulation periodical in the United States — not a magazine, not a newspaper, …