Finance History | Walton's 5-10, Bentonville — The Dime Store That Financed a Discount Chain

People treat Walmart as a Bentonville headquarters that later listed on an exchange.

The public face of the company on the square is still a variety store.

On 9 May 1950 Sam Walton opened Walton's 5-10 at 105 North Main Street after a Ben Franklin lease in Newport had expired and could not be renewed.

The tin ceiling and the floor tiles in the present museum are from that shop.

Walton incorporated the growing discount operation as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on 31 October 1969.

The first Wal-Mart Discount City had already opened on 2 July 1962 at 719 West Walnut Street in nearby Rogers.

On 1 October 1970 the company offered 300,000 common shares at 16.50 dollars a share.

The offering brought in 4.95 million dollars in 1970 currency.

It left the firm with only about 800 shareholders, most of them institutions, employees, or friends of the family.

The stock traded over the counter until it listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 25 August 1972.

Walton later wrote that the listing ended the strain of financing store growth as personal debt.

His wife, Helen, opposed the offering at the time.

Twelve splits later, the same name sits in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100.

The mechanism on this square is ordinary and specific.

A single-town variety store became the books that let a regional discounter sell equity instead of carrying the whole expansion on family credit.

The building is a free public museum.

The home office is a short drive west.

Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.