Well, the wait is over, and Dollar General is ready to be of service to the community. Since we've all seen these stores popping up all over the place, I thought a brief bit of history might be fun.
J.L. Turner was the brain behind the concept. His father had passed away when J.L. was 11 years old. He had to quit school in Nashville Tennessee to work on the family farm to help support his family. Never finishing his education, he knew he had to learn on his own what people wanted, and how to get them the products they needed. He tried his hand at a few retail stores, but was unsuccessful, so he left the overhead operations and started selling what he could carry door ro door. This job was selling dry goods for a Nashville wholesale grocer, and was more successful for him.
After 10 years, he moved his family to Scottsville Kentucky Now, this was during the depression, and money was scarce, to say the least, so with the money he had saved, he began buying out retail stores that were going out of business, and liquidating them at a discount prices. His only son, Cal Turner, joined him on these acquisitions and gained valuable business skills at a young age. In October of 1939, Cal and his father opened a wholesale store called J.L. Turner and Son with an investment of $10,000.00, becoming J.L.'s third attempt at selling retail, and this time, it took off. They went from wholesale to retail, and by the 1950's, it was a 2 million dollar annual business
. The first Dollar General opened in Springfield, Kentucky on June 1st, 1955, and the concept was everything in the store would cost a dollar or less. Seeing the need for more stores, every store Cal and his father owned became Dollar General stores, and by 1957, annual sales at Dollar General's 29 stores became $5 million.
By 1964, the company went public as Dollar General Corporation, posting sales of more than $40 million, and net income in excess of $1.5 million. In 1977, Cal Turner , Jr. who joined the company in 1965 succeeded his father as President of the corporation, and was there until his retirement in 2002. Under his leadership, the company grew to over 6,000 stores and sales of $6 billion annually.
Today the company is still growing, and remains true to the humble ethic of hard work and friendly customer service embodied by the founding family. About 25% of the products sold are still $1 or less, so come on over and see what Kenyon's Dollar General has for you!
