Sears Tower

My parents and my grandmother could be precise when it mattered — say, when my father, a structural engineer, conducted a total stress-test analysis of the Sears Tower, as it was known then.

Hoffman Estates has been home to Sears’ corporate headquarters since 1992, when the company left its namesake Sears Tower in downtown Chicago before selling the skyscraper, now the Willis Tower, two years later.

For Sears, the segue to new uses is perhaps most pronounced in its hometown, Chicago, where for decades the tallest building was Sears Tower.

To Chicagoans, the distinctive skyscraper that dominates the skyline will always be the Sears Tower, no matter that it was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009.

The John Hancock Center and Sears Tower were constructed from steel out of South Works, a former steel mill located in the South Chicago neighborhood.