A fellow Missourian, James Cash Penney, defined the pinnacle of corporate and civic leadership. He set the bar very high and most modern companies cannot match his dedication to his employees and customers.
Garden City’s J.C. Penney Store
This post is the third in a series on Garden City, Kansas, highlighting the genealogical riches that can be found in the National Register of Historic Places. The J.H. Stevens-C.L. Thompson Block Historic District was listed in the NRHP on June 17, 2024. The historic significance of the district was researched and written by the author.
When I started researching the Garden City J.C. Penney store, I told my dad about the project. He surprised me by saying he had met Mr. Penney in the early 1960s at the farm Penney donated to the University of Missouri-Columbia. Dad mentioned the warmth and humility behind the man who, even though he was in his upper eighties, refused to give up his personal appearances at his stores and championing causes he supported. According to one source, in 1959 Mr. Penney attended fifty-nine store openings, made a hundred speeches, spent two hundred days on the road travelling sixty thousand miles, and appeared on twenty-seven radio and television programs.[1] Here is a short story on the man and his legacy.
James Cash Penney (1875-1971) opened his first store in 1902 in the mining town of Kemmerer, WY. Beginning with “the Golden Rule” dry goods store, he bought out his partners through scrimping and saving. By 1912 he had a chain of forty stores when he decided to change the name to his own. The man was known for remembering names of his employees, even when meeting years later. He started profit-sharing program in 1907 that he attributed to his firm’s success because it “created incentive and made all employees truly ‘associates.’”[2] Penney’s employment was considered a good job with benefits that included Christmas bonus valued at approximately two weeks wages for full time employees and a commensurate amount for part timers.[3] Many employees began at the bottom and retired at the top. Upon his death in 1971, Penney had 1,660 stores, the fifth largest merchandise company in the U.S. with $4.1B in annual sales.[4]
Between 1920 and 1930, Penney’s opened a new store, on average, every three days.[5] When Penney’s opened in Garden City, Kansas in 1929, the company promised higher quality for lower prices from its 1,400 stores across the United States, offering “no sales but low prices every day.” By 1954, the company was still in a period of expansion and renewal, opening twenty-five new stores and renovating over one hundred existing concerns in the first half of the year.[6]
With their announcement of plans to build a new store in downtown Garden City, the notice emphasized that Penney’s would stay open in a temporary location farther down Main Street. Construction, however, took much longer than expected. Demolition of John Stevens’ Opera House began in early January 1953 but was halted after only a few days when cracks appeared in the south wall of the four-story Windsor Hotel next door. When inspected, the site was deemed unsafe without reinforcement of the Windsor building prior to further demolition of the Opera House. This work delayed construction of the new Penney building until September 1953. When new building was finally completed and the grand-opening occurred on February 18, 1954, the Garden City store was one of the seventy-seven locations in Kansas.
The modern store was designed by local architect Howard Blanchard and built by local contractor Boyd Stehwein; the building was owned by Max Kurtz of Denver. Subcontractors included D’Agosto Tile Co., Smith Sand Co., Sheet Metal Works, Ready Mix Concrete, Geier Electric, Johnson Plumbing, McAllister-Fitzgerald Lumber Co. and Douglas Roofing Co., all of Garden City.[7]
The Garden City Telegram heralded the new store with almost double the size of earlier store. Men and women’s clothing were the prominent first-floor displays, with two new departments – hardware and home furnishings, showcased in the basement. Thirty individuals were employed in the store with Paul Cole, who began working for the firm in 1922 in Abilene, KS, the store’s manager. The next two decades were very successful for the Garden City store and by the mid-1970s, Penney’s expanded into the adjacent space at 407 N. Main. Like many other department stores, J.C. Penney’s moved out of downtown to Garden City Plaza in 1984. C.R. Anthony replaced Penney’s in the 407-409 storefront space.
The details you find in a nomination to the NRHP include specifics about the buildings and their occupants. Note that information will be listed by building so if the company changed locations or in this case, expanded into a second storefront, note that unique details may be found for each location.
405: The South Storefront
When the Stevens’ Building was first completed, the first floor was occupied by grocer M.J. Sharpe and Co. and J.H. Stevens & C.L. Thompson architects. The builders maintained an office in the building until they moved to Eighth Street in 1887.[8] They were replaced by a boot and shoe retail store, followed by a lunch room in 1899, then a dry goods store. In October 1891, the drug store operating at 409 N. Main called the Opera House Drug Store, was purchased by T.C. Laughlin. In ca. 1910, Laughlin moved his concern to 405 and changed the name to Laughlin Pharmacy. Upon the death of Mr. Laughlin in 1920, G.B. Norris bought the concern and changed the name to his own.[9] The Norris Drug Store occupied the location for twenty years with a popular ice cream parlor and selling everything from medications and cosmetics to children’s books and insecticide. Norris Drug moved to 312 N. Main in 1941; G.B. Norris retired in 1957 at the age of ninety-two.
407: The North Storefront
By 1905 a millinery shop was located in the north storefront addressed at 407 N. Main. Through the years various retail stores used the space until J.B. Byars purchased the building for his dry goods concern. Byars had stores in 118 locations across Kansas and Colorado that were ultimately bought by J.C. Penney.[10] On August 1, 1929, a J.C. Penney sign replaced Byars on the storefront at 407 N. Main in Garden City. Byars retained ownership of the building and became a manager for the Penney’s company with oversight of many of the stores he formerly owned.[11] Byars, like Penney had opened dry goods stores in the western United States. Buyers for the firms met periodically and had an agreement not to encroach on the other’s territory. With the additional stores, Penney’s had 1,400 locations by the end of 1929 with annual sales of $215M.[12] The Penney’s store moved to the ground floor of Stevens Opera House in 1931 doubling their store size. In 1975, J.C. Penney’s expanded their store into the ground floor of 407 and remained until 1984.
Want more? Much has been written about J.C. Penney’s life including a couple of excellent articles you can find here and here.
[1] Gary Hoover. “J. C. Penney, the Man: A Life of Perpetual Sharing.” American Business Hsitory. Accessed 9 July 2025 at https://americanbusinesshistory.org/j-c-penney-the-man-a-life-of-perpetual-sharing/
[2] J.C. Penney, Founder of Chain Stores, Dies at 95.” New York Times. 13 Feb 1971, 1, 31.
[3] Iola Register. 17 Dec 1953, 2.
[4] New York Times. 13 Feb 1971, 31.
[5] Mary M. Stiritz. J.C. Penney Company Warehouse Building (St. Louis) National Register Nomination. Washington, DC: National Parks Service, 1999.
[6] Salina Journal. 18 Nov 1953, 4.
[7] Garden City Telegram. 17 Feb 1954, 8.
[8] Garden City Irrigator. 16 Jan 1886, 3, and the Daily Sentinel. 7 Jan 1886, 4.
[9] Garden City Telegram. 26 Aug 1920, 1. The Laughlin Pharmacy is not to be confused with a second firm of that same name that was established in the city 1953 by Albert Laughlin from Dodge City. Garden City Telegram. 31 Jul 1975, 3.
[10] Dodge City Daily Globe. 3 Dec 1914, 1.
[11] “J.C. Penney Co. Formally Takes Over J.B. Byars Store.” Garden City News. 1 Aug 1929,1.
[12] Ibid.