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Later this year, 60 years will have passed since the first Walmart opened its doors in Rogers, Ark., the town that borders the retailer’s Bentonville headquarters. Put another way, most Americans don’t remember the United States without a Walmart at which to shop or peruse or merely gossip about or await the day when the discounter came to their neighborhood.
To say that Walmart has forever changed the ways retailing is practiced in America is to severely understate reality. The millions of people who have effectively toiled for the retailer offer relatively few insights, confident that they have been there when being there was most important. Competitors, sometimes defensively, berate the Bentonville company while continuing to search for ways to compete. And suppliers still strive to become part of the extended Walmart family. Indeed, it is estimated that some 1,250 Walmart suppliers operate an office in or near Bentonville.
Point is, Walmart is a big deal. In fact it has become the biggest deal in the history of U.S. retailing. The chain’s founder, Sam Walton, has acquired legendary status. Indeed the tales that have grown about this legendary retail founder have in some cases dwarfed his actual accomplishments, despite the enduring value of those accomplishments. Indeed, almost everyone has a favorite “Mr. Sam” story, even those who never set eyes on him. As for those who came to know and admire him during his halcyon years, present company happily included, his stature has only grown throughout the years since his death so many years ago.
Indeed, it is a rare visit to Bentonville when I’m not asked by several Walmart associates: “I understand you knew Mr. Sam. Tell me, what was he really like?”
Truth is, Sam Walton was one of very many, especially including Walmart’s current CEO, Doug McMillon. Among them, people like Jack Shewmaker, David Glass and Tom Coughlin come readily to mind, both for what they accomplished and what they came to represent.
Speaking of Coughlin, his daughter, Kelly, is among those who, never having worked at Walmart, nonetheless remains one of the retailer’s biggest boosters. Indeed, she happily tells the story of her parents’ arrival in Bentonville in 1978, a month before she was born. To put the Coughlins’ arrival into perspective, Kelly recalls the newspaper headline that greeted her arrival: “Bentonville to Get Its First Stoplight.”
If this reminiscing has a point, it is simply to remember one of retailing’s defining moments — and all that has followed from that moment. Walmart today is as much a part of the retail landscape as Kmart was in its day or Sears before that or J.C. Penney before that. The retailer has become the yardstick against which retailers measure their progress or lack thereof. Bentonville has acquired an identity all out of proportion to its actual presence in northwest Arkansas. And the people who once worked or continue to work at Walmart have themselves acquired a reputation that sometimes — but not always — exceeds their actual accomplishments.
And so, during this period of unequaled stress for the retail community both here and globally, this would probably be an ideal time to put the cares of the moment aside for just a few minutes and applaud Walmart for its many accomplishments of the past and present, and for those yet to come. The geographical center of America is not Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City or any location between. It is, in point of fact, Bentonville, in the northwest corner of the state of Arkansas.
Happy Birthday, Walmart. And may you have many more.
