In a filing made public earlier this week, the parent company of Sears — and its more modern offshoot Kmart — said that it faced “substantial doubt” over whether the brand would continue to be viable.

This past year has been a bad stint for Sears, as it is expected to close almost 50 of its U.S. department stores, along with over 100 Kmart locations. This comes on the heels of the sale of the Craftsman brand to Black & Decker and the separation of the Land’s End label from the parent company in 2014.

In the same filing, company executives cited the need for greater liquidity — but no matter how much the brand sells off, doubts remain about its future. After over a century of storied retailing, the doors may finally be shutting on Sears.

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This will be sad news for the generations of people who grew up with the Sears sign lighting Main Street and the infamous Sears Wish Book ushering in every holiday season. However, the news also marks the perfect time to look back at some of the iconic images of one of America’s signature department stores.

Sears Roebuck and Co. Sears Roebuck and Co., and later just Sears, saw the rise and fall of retail shopping in the U.S. Its mass closings coincide with the shuttering of indoor malls across the country, which depended on department stores like Sears to bring in business. Though the mighty mall has fallen in the face of the even mightier internet, we can remember fondly the Sears and Co. box store and the retail metropolises of the past.

(photo: abcnews.com)

The Fashions. The Sears catalog was famous for pushing the latest fashion trends. Sears was a major designer of women’s wear and its catalogs work as snapshots of various time periods.

So important are the decades’ worth of books that sold bell bottoms, cuffed jeans, shoulder pads, jean jackets, and more that its history has been saved and chronicled at searsarchives.com.

(photo: metv.com)

Garanimals. Of course, fashion wasn’t just for adults. Throughout the ’70s, the Garanimals line of clothing carved out its own retail niche thanks in large part to the Sears catalog and retail stores.

The idea was simple: Let kids match their own clothes by matching the tags on them (which just happened to be pictures of cute animals). The effect? Take some of the load off Mom in the morning — and give kids more agency by letting them choose their own clothes. Despite its disappearance after the ’70s, the Garanimals brand has not faded to history forever — the line was renewed in 2008.

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The Sears Christmas Wish Book. This catalog arrived in the early fall, giving kids plenty of time to pore over it before the holiday season arrived. For many, it was synonymous with the Christmas list. Parents could look through the family catalog, choosing between the toys their children had circled.

While the breadth and depth of the market has increased exponentially with online retail, there’s something about the classic paper catalog that brings back late fall nights by the wood-burning stove in (albeit, polyester) pajamas.

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Though the future for Sears Holdings is looking ever more dim, its status as a former giant of the retail world and a fixture in the American zeitgeist is certain to last long after the doors close. The brand’s very presence has shaped the way Americans shop. Without the original mail-order catalog, we may never have gained the appetite for all-in-one shopping offered now by websites like Amazon and eBay.

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It’s unfortunate that the grandfather of all catalogs was never able to transcend paper — and the “world’s largest store” wasn’t able to hold onto the market share that ended up going to newer department stores like Wal-Mart and Target. But for those looking for a little nostalgia, you can always peruse your childhood Christmas Wish Book online. Though it may have replaced Sears, the internet can also keep the memory alive.