With a year left on the lease, but the store effectively sold, he, his wife Helen and his father-in-law managed to negotiate the purchase of a new location on the downtown square of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walton's Five and Dime, now the Walmart Visitors Center, Bentonville. Despite forcing Walton out, Holmes bought the store's inventory and fixtures for $50,000, which Walton called "a fair price". The lack of a renewal option, together with the prohibitively high rent of 5% of sales, were early business lessons to Walton. Īdmiring Sam's great success, and desiring to reclaim the store (and franchise rights) for his son, he refused to renew the lease. Holmes, whose family had a history in retail. With the sales volume growing from $80,000 to $225,000 in three years, Walton drew the attention of the landlord, P. His second store, the tiny "Eagle" department store, was down the street from his first Ben Franklin and next door to its main competitor in Newport.
Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods. According to Walton, if he offered prices as good or better than stores in cities that were four hours away by car, people would shop at home. Walton pioneered many concepts that became crucial to his success. The store was a franchise of the Butler Brothers chain.
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With the help of a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved from his time in the Army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas. In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton took over management of his first variety store at the age of 26. He eventually reached the rank of captain. In this position he served at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah. Army Intelligence Corps, supervising security at aircraft plants and prisoner of war camps. Soon afterwards, Walton joined the military in the U.S. In the meantime, he worked at a DuPont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. He resigned in 1942 in anticipation of being inducted into the military for service in World War II. Walton spent approximately 18 months with J. Penney as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa, three days after graduating from college. Walton realized while serving in the army, that he wanted to go into retailing and to go into business for himself. įurthermore, he elaborated that he learned from a very early age that it was important for them as kids to help provide for the home, to be givers rather than takers. Upon graduating in 1940 with a bachelor's degree in economics, he was voted "permanent president" of the class. Additionally, Walton served as president of Burall Bible Class, a large class of students from the University of Missouri and Stephens College. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men, and the national military honor society Scabbard and Blade. Also during his time in college, Walton joined the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. During this time, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals.
He attended the University of Missouri as an ROTC cadet. Hickman High School in Columbia, he was voted "Most Versatile Boy".Īfter high school, Walton decided to attend college, hoping to find a better way to help support his family. In addition, he sold magazine subscriptions. Afterwards, he would deliver Columbia Daily Tribune newspapers on a paper route. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Growing up during the Great Depression, he did chores to help make financial ends meet for his family as was common at the time. Įventually the family moved to Columbia, Missouri. In adult life, Walton became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. While attending eighth grade in Shelbina, Missouri, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state's history. They moved from one small town to another for several years, mostly in Missouri. He and his family (now with another son, James, born in 1921) moved from Oklahoma. He worked for his brother's Walton Mortgage Company, which was an agent for Metropolitan Life Insurance, where he foreclosed on farms during the Great Depression. However, farming did not provide enough money to raise a family, and Thomas Walton went into farm mortgaging. He lived there with his parents on their farm until 1923. Samuel Moore Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.
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