Background

Samuel Moore Walton was born on March 29, 1918, Kingfisher, Oklahoma), American retail magnate who founded (1962) Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and developed it, by 1990, into the largest retail sales chain in the United States.

Walton graduated from the University of Missouri in 1940, leaving with a bachelor’s degree in economics. After college, he entered a J.C. Penney Company management training program in Des Moines, Iowa. The training helped him open his own Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas in 1945.

Five years after opening his first store, he relocated the store to Bentonville, Arkansas. Along with his brother, James, he operated a regional chain of Ben Franklin stores in the 1960s. It was the first step in his journey to dominate the retail store industry.

Career

Walton’s company, Wal-Mart Stores grew to be the world's largest corporation by revenue as well as the biggest private employer around the globe.

Walton passed away on April 5, 1992 in Little Rock, Arkansas before he could see how much the digital world would expand his company to new heights.