Walton, Sam (1918–1992), merchant, founder of Wal‐Mart Stores.Sam Walton was born near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Graduating from the University of Missouri in 1940, he became a management trainee with J.C. Penney Company in Des Moines, Iowa. After
World War II military service, Walton in 1945 opened a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas. In 1950, having lost his lease in Newport, and assisted by a loan from his wealthy father‐in‐law, Walton opened his own store in Bentonville, Arkansas. There his talents as a retailer blossomed, and, by the early 1960s, in partnership with his brother, he had built a chain of sixteen variety stores.
Meantime, the growth of discount retailing threatened the survival of variety stores, so Walton entered the new field, opening the first Wal‐Mart Discount City store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962, the same year the retailing giant Kresge launched its K‐mart chain. In 1970, with thirty‐two retail outlets, Walton incorporated the firm and offered stock to the public. Ten years later, Wal‐Mart was the leading southern discounter with 276 stores and a net income of $41 million. Observers credited the firm's success to superior management and to Walton's personality, while critics complained that Wal‐Mart was destroying small‐town merchants.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Wal‐Mart expanded nationwide and turned to new retailing formats, including Sam's Wholesale Clubs and Supercenters. By the time of Walton's death, he had ranked for several years as “the richest man in America,” and Wal‐Mart with its 1,928 outlets and net income of $1.6 billion had surpassed Sears and K‐mart as the nation's leading retailer.
See also
Consumer Culture;
Mass Marketing;
Shopping Centers and Malls.
Bibliography
Sam Walton with and John Huey , Sam Walton, Made in America: My Story, 1992.
Sandra S. Vance and and Roy V. Scott , Wal‐Mart: A History of Sam Walton's Retail Phenomenon, 1994.
Roy V. Scott
