Retail pioneer Montgomery Ward, 128, announced on Thursday that it is shutting its doors for good. Begun in 1872, Wards pioneered mail-order catalogs, and the chain, which expanded through the years before it started to shrink by the 1950s, was an American institution (there's even a reference to it in "The Music Man"). Wards was the first U.S. mail-order house to sell general merchandise. By comparison, its chief rival, Sears, Roebuck & Co., wasn't founded until 1886 and didn't put out its first general merchandise catalog until a decade later, though Sears is still going strong. "Sadly," Wards CEO Roger Goddu said in this week's statement, "today's action is unavoidable." He cited "weak holiday sales" and "a very difficult retail environment."

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