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Show Penney's Mark 29th 'Birthday' In American Fork This month marks the 28th anniversary anni-versary of the Penney store, accord-: accord-: ing to M. L. Baird, manager. Specially Spec-ially purchased new fall merchandis is being offered throughout the. store in celebration of the anniversary. "It was in September of 1911 that the Penney store in American Fork first opened its doors," states Mr. Baird. "From the very beginning American Fork has proved itself particularly cordial to this company of ours which caters to the needs of those thrifty salaried and working folk vitally interested in stretching their dollars to the utmost. We have appreciated the patronage of local people. We feel that we have shared shar-ed in the progress of American Fork and hope that in some measure we have contributed to it." The Penney store has grown steadily in both size and volume since its early days here, as customers cus-tomers learned to know and like Penney merchandise and the Penney way of doing business. The Penney Company and its policies are well known, not only in American Fork but throughout the state of Utah, according to M. L. Baird. "There are now 29 Penney ! stores in the state," he continues, "the first Utah store having opened at Eureka in April, 1909." The Penney Pen-ney Company itself is 37 years old this year. From one little store established es-tablished in a small mining town 37 years ago it has grown to an organization of 1557 stores located in every state in the Union a growth which testifies to the soundness sound-ness of the policies of the J. C. Penney Company. James C. Penney, the founder of Penney's, opened his first store under the name of the "Golden Rule" in Kemmerer, Wyoming, Wyo-ming, in 1902. The next year, the second J. C. Penney store was opened, open-ed, and with very few exceptions, every year since then has seen the addition of more stores to the company. com-pany. Observers of department store operations op-erations in this country, attribute much of the Penney Company's success suc-cess to its rigid adherence to this original plan of Mr. Penney's of placing ' full merchandising control of each store with the local manager man-ager who knows the wants and needs of the people of his own community. com-munity. He is in a position to keep his customers in touch with popular style trends, new manufacturing processes, wearing-quality tests and other features that make for successful suc-cessful department store service. Then, too, this plan gives the up-and -coming man in the organization a chance to demonstrate his capacities for greater responsibilities and enables en-ables him to move forward much more rapidly than he possibly could under a cut-and-dried system. ; Almost to a man, the officials of the Penney Company got their start in business behind the counter. Although Al-though the company is now the largest organization of its kind in the country, its stores carry on the old-time traditions that made store and customer relationships of yesterday yes-terday more personal than they are apt to be today. ' . n |
