Milestones Icon: J.C.Penney

J.C. Penney’s middle name held an omen of things to come for the businessman and entrepreneur that ran a meat and dry goods shop in Longmont.

His father, an impoverished farmer and part-time Baptist preacher, gave Penney the middle name Cash.

Born in Hamilton, Missouri, J.C. Penney moved to Colorado for health reasons, landing in Longmont around 1898, where he opened the J.C. Penney Meat Market, which also had a bakery and sold vegetables.

It’s unclear how well the business did, but Penney became ever indebted to one of Longmont’s founding fathers, Thomas Callahan.

In 1902, Callahan and Guy Johnson, owners of the Golden Rule dry goods stores, offered Penney one-third partnership in a new store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Penney invested $2,000 and moved there to open the store.

Penney participated in opening two more stores, and when Callahan and Johnson dissolved their partnership in 1907, Penney purchased full interest in all three stores, leveraging them into what would become the J.C. Penney Co. empire of more than 1,800 stores.

In 1913, he incorporated the name J.C. Penney Co., and began to phase out the Golden Rule name. Yet, he continued to live by the Golden Rule, including it as his personal business philosophy.

In 1916, the J.C. Penney Co. moved east of the Mississippi River and during the 1920s, the company expanded nationwide. By 1929, the company had 1,400 stores in 29 states. In 1917, Penney gave up daily operating management of the chain to his trusted colleague, Earl Corder Sams, retaining the title chairman of the board so he could focus on the future of the company. Remembering his own roots, he offered free business training courses to store employees who desired to get ahead.

This attitude was best expressed in his most famous quote, “Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals, and I’ll give you a stock clerk.”

In keeping with his Christian beliefs to help his fellow man, in the mid-1920s Penney established a 120,000-acre experimental farming community in Florida, where economically destitute farmers and their families could live and work until they rebuilt their lives and became independent again.

On Dec. 26, 1970, he fell and fractured his hip. A few weeks later, he suffered a heart attack and quickly passed away. A lifelong Christian who put his faith into action to help others, he was made a 33-degree Mason and presented with their Gold Distinguished Service Award.

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