Walmart opened its first Wal-Mart Discount City store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962. Sam Walton opened the store on July 2 at 719 West Walnut Street, launching the discount chain that became Walmart.
Walton’s move followed his experience operating variety stores and his interest in the growing discount-retail model. The store’s design was influenced partly by Ann & Hope, a discount retailer Walton visited in 1961. The name “Wal-Mart” also echoed FedMart, another discount chain that influenced his thinking.
The Rogers location was the company’s first discount store, not Walmart’s first retail business of any kind. Walton had already operated Ben Franklin variety stores, and the new format focused on low prices and high sales volume. Within five years, the company had expanded to 18 Arkansas stores and reached $9 million in sales.
Walmart’s early growth remained regional at first. Its first stores outside Arkansas opened in 1968, in Sikeston, Missouri, and Claremore, Oklahoma. The original Rogers building is no longer Walmart’s operating store, while the company’s Store No. 1 later expanded elsewhere in the city.