Yeah, Craftsman was pretty much "the only game in town" (or state) before the big boxes came.
I remember hours of pouring over their catalog (tool specialty), which was actually pretty educational in itself (figuring out why you would need such a tool or how it worked)!
Earlier this week in Home Depot I saw a "holiday special" Husky 1/4" and 3/8" socket set for $29 and reflected that it would have cost something like $79 from Sears in 1976 dollars!!!
On the one hand, Sears pretty much had a monopoly and I suspect made a very generous profit off of tool sales. On the other, the tools were made in the US providing sustainable jobs.
I'm waiting for a good alternate history novel where Ross Perot was the first businessman elected president. He was skewered by the two party system portraying him as deranged, but looking back, a lot of what he said made good sense. Not sure he would have been better than who was elected (I don't remember who he ran against), but it would be fun to read a "what if" novel by someone thoughtful about it!