Retail History | Walmart — Walton's 5 and 10 on the Bentonville Square
· 1951-3
Unreviewed contributionBy kevin · · updated · Report an issue
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Retail History | Walmart — Walton's 5 and 10 on the Bentonville Square
kevin
People treat Walmart as a Supercenter that was always the size of a county.
The first Bentonville room was a dime store on the square.
Sam Walton moved from Newport, Arkansas, in 1950, bought Harrison's Variety Store at 105 North Main Street, and knocked through the barber shop next door.
Local building history dates the remodeled Walton's 5 & 10 grand opening to 18 March 1951. It was advertised as the first self-service variety store in Arkansas.
The tin ceiling and floor tiles in the present museum shop are the same address, not a replica on another block.
Walton ran this counter until 1967, then moved the variety business to a family center off the square.
The company that entered the S&P 500 did not start on this floor as Walmart. That name arrived on 2 July 1962, when Walton opened Wal-Mart Discount City at 719 West Walnut Street in Rogers, about six miles away, with 16,000 square feet and 22 departments.
The Rogers building later lost the store. The Bentonville storefront kept the origin story and became the Walmart Museum.
The mechanism was self-service plus a small-town square that could be restocked from a warehouse Walton controlled. The 5 & 10 taught the traffic. The Rogers box scaled it.
Admission to the museum is free. The public entrance is on the square, not inside a working Supercenter.
Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
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