Sears, once the largest retailer in the world, has filed for bankruptcy and is closing 142 stores. Here's how it got there. (SHLD)

• Sears filed for bankruptcy early Monday morning. The company says it will close 142 stores before the end of the year. Eddie Lampert will step down as CEO and stay on as chairman of the board. 
• The department-store chain has been losing money and closing stores for years. Many employees and analysts blame Lampert for the retailer's decline.
• These photos show how Sears went from being the largest and most prominent retailer in the United States to the struggling company that it is today. 

Sears filed for bankruptcy early Monday morning and announced that its CEO, Edward Lampert, would be stepping down. 

"Over the last several years, we have worked hard to transform our business and unlock the value of our assets," Lampert said in a statement to the press. "While we have made progress, the plan has yet to deliver the results we have desired, and addressing the Company's immediate liquidity needs has impacted our efforts to become a profitable and more competitive retailer."

Lampert will stay on as chairman of the board. The company says it will close 142 additional stores before the end of the year. 

The news comes a week after reports circulated in the press that the company would be filing for bankruptcy imminently, as it was due to pay a $143 million debt to its lenders on Monday.  

As a result, American consumers had been lamenting the loss of one of the country's most famous retailers, which at one point was the world's largest. Sears was widely considered to be an early innovator of the shopping landscape.

"Today is a day that will live in retail infamy. That a storied retailer, once at the pinnacle of the industry, should collapse in such a shabby state of disarray is both terrible and scandalous in equal measure," Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail wrote in a note to clients on Monday morning,

He continued: "In our view, there are a multitude of factors that have contributed to Sears’ demise, but foremost among them is management’s failure to understand retail and evolve Sears in a way that would have given the chain a fair chance of survival."

Keep scrolling to see the story of its downfall in photos:

SEE ALSO: Decaying stores, plunging sales, and a remote CEO: How Sears was driven to the edge of bankruptcy

Sears started off as a mail-order catalog company selling watches and jewelry in 1888. It became the largest catalog company in the United States after expanding its assortment.

In the 1920s, as catalog shopping started to fade out, Sears adapted to the changing times and opened stores. According to Investopedia, sales at its stores outpaced catalog sales by 1931.

Source: Investopedia

The company grew from being only a retailer to offering financial services, including setting up an insurance arm with Allstate and acquiring various financial brokerage firms.

It also began rolling out its own brands such as Craftsman, DieHard, and Kenmore.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider