At age 13, Sam (left) was the youngest Eagle Scout in Missouri. In 1932, he used his Scout training to rescue Donald Peterson (right) from drowning.
Gallery of Sam Walton
Sam Walton, childhood photo
Gallery of Sam Walton
Sam Walton, childhood photo
Gallery of Sam Walton
Nancy Lee and Thomas Gibson Walton with their sons: Samuel Moore Walton, born March 29, 1918, and James "Bud" Walton, born December 20, 1921.
Gallery of Sam Walton
Columbia, Missouri, USA
Sam Walton (center, fifth from right) with fellow newsboys, who worked their way through school delivering the Columbia Missourian on the University of Missouri campus.
Sam Walton (center, fifth from right) with fellow newsboys, who worked their way through school delivering the Columbia Missourian on the University of Missouri campus.
(Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun c...)
Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun cloth of America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century, Sam never lost the common touch.
Sam Walton was an American businessman and entrepreneur, who opened the first Walmart in 1962, after years in the retail management business. Walton opened his discount stores in towns previously served only by hardware and five & dime stores. His strategy of monopolizing the discount shopping market in rural areas made his stores the largest retail chain in the United States.
Background
Sam Walton was born on March 29, 1918, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, the United States, to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee. He had one younger brother, James. His father was a farmer. Since farming did not provide a good deal of money, Thomas Walton decided to change his business into farm mortgaging. Walton Mortgage Company was owned by the bother of Thomas. He decided to work there. During the great depression, he repossessed the farms. Early in his life Walton and his family moved to Missouri, where he was raised. Sam added to the family's income by delivering newspapers and helping his mother run a small milk business she started with a few cows.
Education
Sam Walton took the title as the Most Versatile Boy when he graduated from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia. Sam was known as the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of Missouri. At that time, he was in the 8th grade in Shelbina. He also made a name for himself as a quarterback on the school football team, captain of the basketball team, class president, and student council president. His high school yearbook of 1936 described him as having distinguished himself in "leadership, service, and ability."
After high school, Walton stayed close to home and enrolled at the University of Missouri in Columbia. To pay the tuition bill, he worked as a lifeguard, waiter, and newspaper delivery driver. Walton graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in economics in 1940. Following graduation, he aspired to attend the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, but quickly found he couldn't afford it.
Following college, Walton got his first real taste of the retail world when took a job in Des Moines with the J.C. Penney Company, which was still a relatively small retailer, before serving in the Army during World War II. He joined the United States Army Intelligence Corps and supervised security at aircraft plants and prisoner of war camps. He eventually reached the rank of Captain in his army career and returned to civilian life once the war was over.
After the war, Walton opened his first store, a Ben Franklin franchise, in Newport, Arkansas. In less than two decades, Walton, working with his younger brother, James, came to own 15 Ben Franklin stores. But frustration over the management of the chain, in particular the decision to ignore Walton’s push to expand into rural communities, prompted him to strike out on his own. Walton now planned to open bigger stores in rural areas with discounted prices in order to attract more customers and achieve a higher sales volume. However, Ben Franklin executives were not in favor of this concept and turned down the plan. Rebuffed for having too little capital, Walton decided to go it alone from scratch.
Walton decided to set up such a chain on his own. He opened the first Walmart store, Wal-Mart Discount City, in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962, offering a wide variety of merchandise at discount prices in a no-frills setting. Stores originally were located within a day's driving distance from the company's distribution center to ensure almost instantaneous restocking. Walmart's supply chain was so efficient it would order a product and have it sold in three days while having to pay vendors every thirty days.
Success was swift. By 1976 Walmart was a publicly-traded company with a share value north of $176 million. Volume buying and a low-cost delivery system enabled Wal-Mart Stores to offer name-brand goods at discount prices in locations where there was little competition from other retail chains. As a result, the Wal-Mart chain experienced tremendous and sustained growth, with 190 stores by 1977 and 800 stores by 1985.
Walton was responsible for a lot of success. His vision of a discount retail store in rural areas was accompanied by the founder’s hard-charging, demanding style. Walton, who often began his workdays at 4:30 in the morning, expected results from those beneath him, and wasn’t afraid to change course or reshuffle his personnel if he didn’t like the numbers that came back to him.
By the early 1990s, Walmart’s stock worth had jumped to $45 billion. In 1991, Walmart surpassed Sears, Roebuck & Company to become the country’s largest retailer. Sears fell to third place after Walmart and Kmart. In that same year, as the country was mired in an economic downturn, Walmart increased sales by more than 40%. Walton had stepped down as the CEO in 1988 but remained active in the company until his death in 1992.
(Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun c...)
1992
Religion
Along with his wife, Walton supported various charitable causes and was active in the First Presbyterian Church in Bentonville where he served as a Ruling Elder and a Sunday School teacher. He also made considerable financial contributions to the church.
Politics
The Walton family has traditionally donated to Republicans.
Views
Sam Walton had realized that money gave him the opportunity to help others. The Walton family donated money to schools, church groups, and other charitable causes. The Walmart Foundation was established in 1979 to contribute to the underprivileged, focusing on the core areas of opportunity, sustainability, and community. After Sam's death, Helen continued her husband's charitable work through the Walton Family Foundation.
Quotations:
"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."
"If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever."
"Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish."
"I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been."
"High expectations are the key to everything."
"Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up."
Membership
During his university days, Walton became a member of QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men, and the national military honor society Scabbard and Blade. He also joined the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
QEBH
Scabbard and Blade
Zeta Phi
Personality
Walton loved hunting, especially quail.
Interests
Quail hunting
Sport & Clubs
Basketball, football
Connections
In 1943, Walton married Helen Robson and would eventually have four children with her.