WLM
In 1923, he founded a 120,000
acre experimental farming area
in Florida for struggling farmers.
With 674 stores to his credit by
1925, he established the J.C. Penney Foundation to fund many
family-related endeavors. Following that, he built a Memorial
Home, a 60-acre
community for
retired ministers
and missionaries next to the
Penney Farms.
This was also
where Foremost
Dairy
Farms,
Inc. was established.
Most of this
work was halted
with the stock
market crash of
1929. The Great
Depression left
Penney in financial ruin. With
most of his personal
wealth
gone he borrowed against
his life insurance
policies to meet
payroll and other company expenses. His stores subsequently
cut back severely on inventory
and tried to obtain better buys
for their customers. In a Great
Depression twist, the company’s
profits actually increased during
this time and the number of
stores grew to 1,496!
The financial ruin, however, also
damaged Penney’s health. He
checked into a sanitorium for
treatment and there became a
born-again Christian. Around
this time, Penney gave up most
of the daily management of the
company but still was heavily
involved. During a visit to a Des
Moines, Iowa store in 1940, he
trained a young Sam Walton - future founder of Walmart in 1962
- how to gift wrap packages economically.
By 1958, in keeping with the
times, Penney issued their first
J.C. Penney credit card and added furniture, appliances, electronics and sporting goods. The
first J.C. Penney Catalog hit the
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