© Janice Waltzer from Owasso, USA
Sam Walton was born on March 29, 1918 on a farm near Kingfisher, Oklahoma, to parents Tom and Nan Walton. World War I, was raging in Europe, and survival on the farm was fraught with hardships in the 1920s and early 1930s captured in Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The Great Depression taught Sam the importance of sacrifice and hard work. In 1938, when many people were standing in bread lines, he delivered papers, earning a remarkable $4000 (equivalent to about $60,000 today).
Upon graduation from high school, Sam attended the University of Missouri, emerging with a degree in business in 1940. The fraternity newspaper called him “hustler Walton” for his work ethic and competitive nature. In 1950, Sam obtained a 99-year lease on a store in the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas. Though it was part of the Ben Franklin chain, he named it Walton’s5 & 10 store. The store sales tripled in a short time and by 1952, Walton opened his second variety store–this time in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Soon after, he introduced self-service in both stores to reduce the number of cashiers needed, and he began to investigate further acquisitions.
In the following years, Walton’s variety stores began to sprout like mushrooms in small towns across the country. By 1960 Sam Walton had become America’s largest independent variety store operator with fifteen stores and annual sales of $1.4 million. By 1974, Sam had invested a quarter century of effort and energy into building the Wal-Mart empire and in the process became a billionaire and in 1985 Forbes named Sam Walton as the richest man in America. The fact that money played a minor role in Sam’s lifestyle intrigued reporters. When queried about his frugal lifestyle he responded, “What am I supposed to do, haul my dogs around in a Rolls-Royce?”
In the last chapter of his memoires, Sam Walton: Made in America (1992), Sam reflected on his success and its price:
Here’s how I look at it: my life has been a trade-off. If I wanted to reach the goals I set for myself, I had to get at it and stay at it every day…if I had the choices to make all over again, I would make just about the same ones.
