Located on the site of the original Sears Tower, the historic Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog plant is one of the nations most unique landmarks. Representing American ingenuity at its best, Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald combined technology, commerce, and social science with bricks and mortar to build the Worlds Largest Store on Chicagos West Side. Completed in 1906, the plant housed nearly every conceivable product of the time: clothing, jewelry, furniture, appliances, tools, and more. The complex employed 20,000 people, and merchandise orders were processed and delivered by railwithin the same day. During the first two decades of the 20th century, almost half of Americas families shopped the over 300 million catalogs published in that era. WLS (Worlds Largest Store) Radio broadcasted the Gene Autrey show from the top of the tower, and the first Sears retail store opened here on Homan Avenue and Arthington Street. In 1974, Sears moved to the current Sears Tower. Thanks to many individuals who fought to save these architecturally and historically important treasures, the administration building, the original Sears Tower, the catalog press-laboratory building, and the powerhouse remain today. There are currently plans for redeveloping these buildings into housing, office, and retail space. A new Homan Square Community Center stands on the site of the merchandise building.

Give road-weary eyes a break with this spiral-bound Large Scale edition featuring all the accuracy you've come to expect from Rand McNally, only bigger. This updated atlas contains maps of every U.S. state that are 35% larger than the standard atlas version plus over 350 detailed city inset and national park maps and a comprehensive, unabridged index. Road construction and conditions contact information for every state conveniently located on map pages. Contains mileage chart showing distances between 77 North American cities and national parks with driving times map. Tough spiral binding allows the book to lay open easily. Other Features: Rand McNally presents The National Parks by Decade, a review of park history that begins more than a century ago, with the first wild and wonderful place to achieve park status---Yellowstone. Tourism websites and phone numbers for every U.S. state and Canadian province on map pages. Spiral Binding. Dimensions: 10.375 x 15.375

Road maps are accompanied by information on federally-designated routes and trucking restrictions.