1875-1971
Chain Store Owner

Modest Beginnings.

James Cash Penney was born in Hamilton, Missouri. When he was eight years old his father decided that he must begin to buy his own clothes, and he earned enough that year to buy a pair of shoes. He was educated in the public school of his hometown and graduated from high school in 1893. Two years later he began his career as a clerk in a general store in Hamilton. In 1897 he went to Denver, Colorado, where he was a clerk in a department store, later moving to Longmont, Colorado. Penney started a meat and bakery business that was not a success, but as a result he went to work for T. M. Callahan, dry-goods merchant of Johnson and Callahan, whom Penney called "the man who gave me my great opportunity in life."

The Start of a Chain.

In...