Sears In Concord Will Soon Be The State's Last-Standing Location

CONCORD, CA — As Sears readies to close two of its last three stores in the state, the location in the Bay Area will soon be the last in California — and one of only six in the entire country.

The 139-year-old company currently has three remaining stores in California: Two in Los Angeles County and one in Concord. In Southern California, the Whittier location will shut down by the end of the month, while one in Burbank is set to close soon, the Press-Enterprise reported.

When those two stores close, that will leave the Sunvalley Shopping Center location in Concord as one of just a half dozen nationwide. At its peak, the company had some 3,500 stores nationwide.

Once a retail giant, Sears built up an empire as a mail order business in the 1880s. Its catalogue became a ubiquitous source of everything from household appliances to houses themselves for Americans.

The company began opening retail stores in 1925. It grew to be the country's largest retailer by the 1980s. In recent decades, its stores began dying out — along with the malls that contained them — amid competition from e-commerce and department stores like Walmart and Target.