From one variety store in Arkansas to the world's largest private employer
In 1945 a former J. C. Penney employee named Sam Walton bought a single Ben Franklin variety store. He hunted down cheaper suppliers, undercut local rivals and raised sales 45 percent in his first year. Eight decades later, the company he built employs 2.1 million people, more than any other private employer on Earth.
Walton lost that first shop when its lease ran out, and moved to Bentonville, where his Walton's Five and Dime now houses the company museum. On 2 July 1962 he and his brother Bud opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City in nearby Rogers. The name nodded to FedMart, a discount chain founded by Sol Price, whose name Walton admired. Within five years there were 18 stores across Arkansas, and in 1968 the chain crossed into Missouri and Oklahoma.
Technology and logistics drove the expansion. In 1987 the company completed a $24 million satellite network connecting every store to headquarters for voice, data and video, then the largest private system of its kind, letting managers track stock and sales instantly. New distribution centres were placed within driving distance of clusters of stores, so growth spread outward in a steady, contiguous pattern. By 1990 Wal-Mart was America's biggest retailer by revenue; it moved into Mexico in 1991, Canada in 1994 and South America in 1995, and bought Britain's Asda for $10 billion in 1999. In 2002 it first topped the Fortune 500.
Scale brought scrutiny. Economist Kenneth Stone found some small towns losing almost half their retail trade within a decade of a store opening. Yet he also compared the upheaval to earlier shocks like railways, mail-order catalogues and shopping malls, concluding that shopkeepers who adapted could still thrive. A later study found both gains and losses for nearby businesses. After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, the same logistics network delivered 1,500 truckloads of goods and food for 100,000 meals, alongside a $20 million donation and a promise of work for every displaced employee.
The Walton family's heirs still own more than half the business, making it the largest publicly traded family-controlled company anywhere. In February 2026 it became the first traditional retailer valued above $1 trillion.
Source: Walmart
