Sears and Roebuck: Buying slice of RGV heaven

By RENE TORRES

Advertising in today’s world means using the internet. To sell a product, digital media is the focus of attention. Social media and websites dominate today’s “airways.”

But that does not mean that traditional advertising is a lost art. Magazines, catalogues, newspapers, radio and billboards still play a vital role in marketing.

Allow this writer to go back in time and remind readers that Sears and Roebuck was extremely successful using its yearly catalog to expand sales. While its nationwide stores were closed after hours, its catalogue never closed for business.

Evidence to that was when, in 1938-39, store executives decided to advertise Rio Grande Valley citrus fruit on an easy payment plan using their catalogue.

Fresh fruit was sold through their store in Harlingen…

City dwellers (about 4,000,000) from the Mid-West were opening their Sears catalogue to read, for the first time, about the fruits and vegetable from a place once known as the “Garden of Eden,” the Rio Grande Valley; the “Salad Bowl of the Country.”

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