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🠈  JC Penney  🠊

JC Penney Department Stores

JC Penney (NYSE: JCP) is an independent chain of department stores.

The chain was founded by James Cash Penney (1875 – 1971) who worked for and partnered in the Golden Rule chain of stores in Colorado and Wyoming. Mr. Penney helped open the Golden Rule in Kemmerer, Wyoming and was awarded a one third partnership. Penney bought full ownership of the Kemerrer and two other stores in 1907.

Mr. Penney moved his headquarters to Salt Lake in 1909. The chain had grown to 34 stores by 1912 and was incorporated as JC Penney Company, headquartered in the Kearns Building, in 1913.

The company moved its headquarters to New York in 1914 and quickly expanded to 175 stores by 1917. It opened its thousandth store in 1928.

Mr. Penney lost most of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929 and had to borrow against his life insurance to meet payroll.

The chain grew substantially after WWII and reached its peak size of 2,053 in 1973 before it stumbled during a recession.

The company moved its headquarters to Plano, Texas in 1990.

Direct Sales

JC Penney opened its first catalog store in 1963 and had become the nation's largest catalog store by 1993. The store began selling online through Viewtron videotex service in 1984. They opened their Internet store (jcpenney.com) in 1999. The company has consistently ranked well as a top internet destination.

Surprisingly, JC Penney closed its catalog outlets in 2011. The power of the JC Penney model was that it combined the convenience of internet shopping with local service.

Corporate History

References:

  1. Wikipedia - JC Penny (Drawn 3/24/2017)
  2. Dallas News - JCP closes Foundry (Drawn 10/18/2019)

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