Infrastructure Capture

Chicago

Chicago #4: The Catalog Kings

In 1872, Montgomery Ward founded America's first mail-order house with $1,600. By 1913, Ward and Sears received more than half of US parcels. The 1906 Sears IPO via Goldman-Lehman pioneered modern equity pricing; the 2024 Tempus AI IPO from inside the Ward Catalog House inherits the playbook.

Chicago

Gustavus Swift: The Cold-Chain King

Gustavus Franklin Swift turned $25 at a Cape Cod kitchen table in 1855 into a company posting $160 million in annual sales by 1903 (~$6 billion today). The butcher who built the cold-chain architecture JBS and Lineage Logistics still run 146 years later.