CHEYENNE - Who remembers when Cheyenne had a full-line Sears store? It seems Sears is making a comeback to Cheyenne as a Hometown store, set to open in the Cheyenne Plaza!
History of Sears in Cheyenne
For those unfamiliar, Cheyenne's original Sears department store started in the space now occupied by 2 Doors Down, a local dine-in restaurant still thriving today in Downtown Cheyenne; this East 17th Street store opened after a previous location on Carey Avenue next to present-day Twin Dragon.
At the turn of the 1980s, Sears relocated from East 17th Street to the Frontier Mall. Sears opened on October 8, 1980 as confirmed by a newspaper published that day from The Wyoming Eagle. This was several months before the mall opened in March 1981.
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| Sears at Frontier Mall during 2017 when it was still open - Google Maps |
Unfortunately, that Sears announced it would liquidate toward the end of 2017, closing in January 2018, less than a year after Cheyenne's last Kmart closed.
The department store side of Sears has slowly been deteriorating, with founder Eddie Lampert closing hundreds of both Sears and Kmart stores over the last few years. On the contrary, it would seem the franchised Sears Hometown stores, a subsidiary of TransformCo since 2019, is thriving and not going anywhere anytime soon!
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| A "Coming Soon - Sears Hometown" sign displayed in the window - Optopolis |
Sears Hometown and some background of its new space
On December 1st, 101.9 KING shared a post showing the brand new Sears sign being added to the front of one of the facades in the Cheyenne Plaza, specifically the one partially used by Absolute Flooring. As of the day of taking the Sears Hometown photos featured in this post (Dec 5th), Sears Hometown is beginning to stock the inside with various home appliances, one of the numerous products Sears Hometowns typically offer to communities besides tools and seasonal products.
At this time, it's not clear to Optopolis what business(es) were open in the space prior to the Walmart Recruitment Center and Absolute Flooring (established in 2011 according to their website).
The new Sears Hometown space was most recently used as a recruitment center for the Walmart Super Center that opened in August 2015 on Livingston Avenue (off of I-80). It has been vacant since that period, as seen in the below photo from the earliest official abandoned retail video on Optopolis which was filmed in 2019.
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| Walmart logo still displayed in the back of the space in 2019 since it was used as a recruitment center for Walmart on Livingston - Optopolis (Not a Walmart Conspiracy?) |
At this time, it isn't known exactly when this Sears Hometown store will open to the public, but seeing products are already being stocked, it likely will not be long. Signs in the window indicate they are also currently hiring workers for the new store.
What do you think?
Will you visit this Sears Hometown when it opens? What are your thoughts of Sears Hometown making it to Cheyenne? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Originally published: 12/05/21 at 9:01 PM
Updated: 11/21/2023 at 6:10 PM to include corrected information regarding Sears' opening at the Frontier Mall.
Updated: 02/05/2024 at 5:53 PM to correct info about previous tenants. At this time, it's not clear if Staples was in this space, and the info has been retracted from this article due to a lack of confirmation of this info.
Updated: 06/24/2025 at 7:26 PM to clean up visibility issues with this article and make minor adjustments to the text contained herein.