OCR Text |
Show THE J. C. PENNEY COM PAhT WILL OPEN THOUSANDTH STORE IN BEL01T, KANSAS; The J. C. Penney Company has announced an-nounced that Store Number One Thousand will be opened in Beloit, Mitchell County, Kansas, about April first. A romantic interest attaches itself to X.ia simple announcement and one that proves even a business as large as this one is not devoid of sentiment and human interest. The J. C. Penney Company has purchased the stock and good-will of W. J. Keyes, local clothing and shoe merchant. It was in Mr. Keyes' store that Mr. Sams, the president of the company, as well as several of the other executives and managers, received re-ceived their early mercantile experience. experi-ence. Out of friendship for Mr. Keyes, the J. C. Penney company has refrained re-frained from opening a competing store in Beloit. When Mr. Keyes recently re-cently expressed a wish to retire, however, the Company offered to buy his stock an dispose of it, and then open under their own name in a nearby near-by location. The lease has been signed and the store building is now in operation and will be completed in time for the opening in the early part of April. Mr. E. C. Sams, the president of the J. C. Penney Company, was born in Simpson, about 12 miles from Bel oit. After finishing grade school in Simpson, he attended High school in Beloit. On Saturdays and after school hours, Mr. Sams worked behind the counter in the Keyes store. When he left high school, he went to Simpson Simp-son and opened a small store by the name of "Shanks and Sams", owned by his father and the Shanks brothers who were interested to a great extent in farming and milling. This business did not prove to be a success, so Mr. Sams' father sold his interest and Mr. Sams went to Colorado City, Colo. There he worked work-ed in a general store owned by Mr. G. W. Ott, uncle of the two Ott brothers broth-ers now in the Company. He stayed one year in Colorado City, and then returned to Simpson and assumed the managership of the Shanks Brothers' Broth-ers' store. This store had moved into a new building and Mr. Sams was permitted per-mitted to use his own judgment in its equipment. He purchased fixtures that would do credit to a metropolitan store and in a short while this store had the reputation of being one of the finest in the country. In spite of his success with the Shanks store, Mr. Sams felt his opportunities op-portunities were limited in a town so small as Simpson and made application applica-tion for another position through a Denver development agency. Mr. J. C. Penney had, at this time, established the mother store of the J. C. Penney company at Kemmerer, Wyoming, and was, besides, operating operat-ing two other stores one in Cumberland, Cumber-land, and the other in Rock Springs, Wyoming. He was in need of a salesman sales-man for the Kemmerer store and had communicated with this Denver employment em-ployment agency, who put him in touch with Mr. Sams. After considerable consider-able correspondence, covering several months, Mr. Sams decided to go out with Mr. Penney. While there he accepted ac-cepted the position, and then returned to his home in Simpson where he resigned re-signed the managership of the Shanks store. In 1907, he moved to Kemmerer Kemmer-er with his family and thus started his career with the J. C. Penney Co,, at the age of twenty-three. The chain of stores interested him intensely. He realized its tremendous possibilities and the opportunities it presented through the partnership plan whereby each manager shared in the profits of his store. Through his early association with the Company, he had the opportunity to see the principles that have gTiided the or- ganization put into operation at the very start, and assisted Mr. Penney heart and soul in carrying out these ideals. Later, Mr. Sams went to the Cumberland Cum-berland store as manager and from there to Eureka, Utah, where he opened the Eureka store. The next step in his career was to move to the offices of the Company in Salt Lake City to assist in the buying for the stores which numbered twenty-five at that time. His program was to visit ' the stores in order to learn their merchandise mer-chandise needs and to make regular trips to New York to assist in purchasing pur-chasing this merchandise. Inside of ten years, he was elected president of the J. C. Penney company. One-hundred One-hundred and seventy-seven , stores were in operation at the time of his election. Mr. G. G. Hoag, a large stock-holder and former Director of the company com-pany was Assistant manager of Mr. Keyes' store in Beloit when Mr. Sams got his early training. Mr. Glen G. White, a Director of the Company, and head of the Real Estate Department, attended High school in Beloit at the same time as Mr. Sams. For seventeen years he was in the coal and lumjber business in Beloit. The success of his former form-er associates and friends attracted him to the J. C. Penney Company and in 1915, he decided on a mercantile career and started with the Company in Provo, Utah, as a salesman. The store in Provo, at that time, was managed by Mr. Fred Bolger who is now deceased. Mrs. Bolger, formerly form-erly Edna Simpson of Beloit, assisted her husband in the Provo store. Mr. Bolger was transferred to Ottumwa, Iowa, from Provo, and from there he went to the New York office to take charge of its Adevrtising department. Following his death, Mrs. Bolger joined the Ready-to-Wear department and has held the position of buyer of one of its divisions for several years. Store number five-hundred, located in Hamilton, Missouri, is identified as the birthplace of the founder of the Company, Mr. J. C. Penney, just as store number one-thousand is identified identifi-ed as the early home of the President, Mr. E. C. Sams. There are at present pres-ent 954 stores in operation, 35 of fi Kon. in ir-.nr.oc. "cvw. r,n indi cations there will be over one-thousand by the end of 1928. Another link in this story is the manager himself, Mr. Fred A. McGee. Mr. McGee was born in Beloit and grew up with the people who will now be his customers. Mr. W. J. Keyes is his personal friend. For nine years after he left colloge, he worked in the Blue Store in Beloit which has subsequently sold its interest. He was employed by Mr. Sams and storted with the Company at Colorado Colo-rado Springs, Colo., in 1920. Three years later he went to the J. C. Penney Pen-ney store in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he has been managing the J. C. Penney company store for the last three years. On account of the associations of the pioneers of the J. C. Penney Co., with Beloit, and the many friends Mr. McGee will claim there, it will not be long before the J. C. Penney company will be known as a land-mark in the community. |