Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas

Walmart and Me

For better or worse, Walmart is a part of my life.  I remember going to Walmart as a kid in the 1980s.  The closest store was about 20 minutes away in Salina, Kansas (Store #588).   While my mother shopped locally as much as she could, we would make the drive to Salina every couple of months to load up on all sorts of household supplies and other items.  For the first part of my adult life, I shopped at Walmart infrequently, usually just for household, gardening and office supplies.   Gradually, the trips became more regular and our “Walmart list” grew. Today, we do most of our grocery shopping at Aldi and Walmart, and then usually supplement that with a trip to the local farmers market.  We get Percy his insulin at the Walmart pharmacy, and I’ve gotten my covid-19 vaccines there.   We usually pick up several cans of Ol’ Roy (Country Stew) that we use to top off the dog’s dry food.  The prices are good.  The selection is great.  And, as full-time RVers, we like the familiar layouts that Walmart offers at its locations.  

Admittedly, I have mixed feelings about having Walmart in my life to such a great extent.  There’s no doubt that Walmart has replaced a lot of the “mom and pop” independent stores, especially those located in smaller Midwest towns like the one I grew up in.  Walmart stores are often located on the outskirts of town so that downtown businesses seem to suffer disproportionally.   I haven’t been able to wean myself off Walmart, although the truth is that I haven’t tried every hard either. 

The Walmart Museum

Sam Walton’s 5-10 store in Bentonville, Arkansas

While RVing in Northwest Arkansas, I wanted to visit the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas to learn more about the company and the man behind it, Sam Walton.   We visited in October 2022, just before the museum’s relocation for renovation until 2024.

The Walmart Museum isn’t actually in a former Walmart. As such, the exterior of the museum doesn’t look anything like the Walmart stores of today.  Instead, the building’s façade has a large red “Walton’s 5-10” sign…just like it did back int he 1950s. A few relatively small blue-and-yellow “Walmart Museum” banners with the familiar yellow spark symbol tell tourists that they are at the right place.   

Fun Fact:  Walmart first started using the yellow “spark” symbol in 2007 according to its trademark (Reg. No. 373555).  In 2018, Walmart dropped the hyphen from its name. 

Upon entering the Walmart Museum, we first encountered a small gift shop filled with other “Walmart shoppers.”  Because the museum was moving to a new location for renovation, the gift shop was filled with DEALS DEALS DEALS!!.   Kasie got excited because she loves to buy stuff, especially stuff on clearance. I reminder her that we don’t have room for souvenir stuff in the RV so we quickly moved beyond the gift store.   

As we entered the Walmart Museum’s exhibit area, there’s what I would call a short “Walmart Propaganda Film.”  Much of the film features CEO Doug McMillon and others talking about Walmart’s amazing history and its explosive growth. Yes, I already know it’s a gazillion dollar company.  Yes, I know about Every Day Low Prices.  Blah blah blah.   I kept listening, and when the film started highlighting some of Sam Walton’s life, that started to draw me in.  While I’m sure Sam’s story is sugar-coated, that tale and the origins of Walmart best part of Walmart Museum.   

Walmart chronology - 1940s, 1950s, 1960s — at the Walmart Museum

Walmart Chronology - 2000s - at the Walmart Musuem

The Walmart Museum is largely organized chronologically, and Sam’s early years were the most fascinating to me.  Sam was largely raised in Missouri and spent his teenage years in Columbia Missouri, where we lived for over eight years.  As a child, Sam was an over-achiever; for example, at age 13, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in Missouri at the time. Sam graduated from Hickman High School in Columbia, where he was the football quarterback, class president, and named “Most Versatile Boy.”  He then stayed in Columbia and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1940.  To pay for his education, he delivered newspapers, worked as a lifeguard, and waited on tables at the student union.  Before becoming his wife, Helen Robson also attended the Christian College for Women (now Columbia College) in Columbia, Missouri.

Sam Walton delivers papers for the Missourian at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri

Fun Fact: At one time, Columbia Missouri had a Walmart on Paris Road, the Parkade Plaza, Biscayne Mall, and the Rockbridge Shopping Center.  Today, a Walmart can be found on West Broadway (Store #80); Conley Road (Store #159), and Grindstone Parkway (Store #451)

Sam got his start in retail at a JC Penny in Iowa before joining the U.S. Army, where he ultimately became a captain.  He married Helen in 1943 and agreed to live in a small town once the war ended.  As a result, when Sam decided to go back into retail, Sam purchased a Ben Franklin franchise store in tiny Newport, Arkansas in 1945.    

Fun Fact:  Sam married his wife Helen Robson on Valentines Day in 1943. 

Sam’s franchise agreement required Sam’s store to purchase the vast majority of his goods through his franchisor, the Butler Brothers.   Sam quickly learned that by buying some goods directly from manufacturers and wholesalers, he could get the goods more cheaply and could sell the goods to his customers at lower prices.  Sam’s franchise was successful.  Very successful.   When the landlord of the Newport location would not renew Sam’s five-year lease because the landlord wanted to reclaim the franchise for his own family, Sam was heartbroken. He learned his lesson, decided to purchase a small variety store in Bentonville, Arkansas, and moved his family to the area.   This time, his lease was for 99 years.

Fun Fact:  Sam’s time away from Newport, Arkansas did not last forever.  On November 1, 1969, Sam opened a Walmart in Newport (store #18)

Walton’s 5-10 Advertisement

On May 9, 1950, Sam opened the Walton’s 5&10 in Bentonville as a Ben Franklin franchise store.  The first ad for Walton's 5&10 in the Benton County Democrat, July 29, 1950 was clearly targeting women -- promising “free balloons for all of the kiddies” and specials on nylon hose, clothespins, and other household items.  There, Sam soon adopted customer self-service, which was quite novel in the 1950s, when the convention was requiring customers to ask a counter clerk for assistance.   With the help of his father and brother Bud, Sam continued to open up new franchises and expand his discounting practices.

It’s stil not clear to me how Sam got out of his franchise agreements or what happened with the Butler Brothers. Regardless, in 1962, Sam opened his first true “Wal-Mart Discount City,” in nearby Rogers, Arkansas.  Two years later, he opened two more Walmarts, one in Harrison, Arkansas and another in Springdale, Arkansas. David Glass (long-time owner of the Kansas City Royals), who would join Walmart 14 years later, attended the opening of the Walmart in Harrison, Arkansas.  He remarked: “It was the worst retail store I had ever seen.”

Walmart’s first advertisement in Rogers, Arkansas

Fun Fact:  In 1962, four companies started discount chains:  Kmart (Garden City, Michigan), Woolco (Columbus, Ohio), Target (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and Walmart (Rogers, Arkansas).

From the company’s hub in Bentonville, Sam expanded his Walmart into Missouri and Oklahoma….and then ultimately the world.  By 1985, Forbes named Sam the richest man in the world.  In 1992, President Bush awarded Sam the Presidential Medal of Freedom shortly before his passing.  The medal is on display at the Walmart Musuem, and that was particularly moving for me to see.

Fun Fact:  In 1984, Sam Walton performed a hula dance on Wall Street because the company reached a certain profit.

The Walmart Museum highlights how Walmart has changed and grown over the years, its philanthropic legacy, and its plans for the future.  An animated map shows the explosion of stores over time in the United States, and there’s a model of the company’s new Bentonville corporate headquarters campus that is currently undergoing construction.

The museum has a few “old school” interactive exhibits too.  For example, by spinning a roll, visitors can learn that EDLP stands for “Every Day Low Prices” and not “Elvis’s Dog Love Pants.”    I hope that the new renovated museum doesn’t get too fancy and lose some of its charm with exhibits like this. 

At least for me, the stories about Sam are really what make the museum worth visiting.  The museum houses Sam’s old (very messy!) office, complete with images of Sam with his family and hunting dogs throughout.  Sam’s old 1979 Ford F-150 pickup truck is in the museum, and the photos of Sam and Ol’ Roy in the truck are on display.   In 1980, Walmart re-named its private label dog food in honor of Ol’ Roy, and the dog’s likeness was added to the packaging. Now, every time if feed our dogs, I’m probably going to think of Sam too.

Sam Walton’s office at the Walmart Museum

Sam Walton’s pickup truck at the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas

Sam Walton wrote a psuedo-autobiography, Made in America, shortly before his death in 1992.  After visiting the museum, I decided to read the book, which was an easy and entertaining read.  The irony is that I read the book on my Amazon kindle.  Amazon was founded in 1994, and I kept wondering how Sam would have felt about the competition.  

In his book, Sam’s work ethic, competitivenss, and folksiness shine. Sam talks a lot about Walmart’s strategy of opening discount stores in small towns where the competition was non-existent.   He also offers some advice to small town merchants:

Buy on Amazon

Most independents are best off, I think, doing what I prided myself on doing for so many years as a storekeeper: getting out on the floor and meeting every one of the customers. Let them know how much you appreciate them, and ring that cash register yourself. That little personal touch is so important for an independent merchant because no matter how hard Wal-Mart tries to duplicate it—and we try awfully hard —we can't really do it…..It's the one kind of store for which I have the least sympathy because, frankly, a good smart hardware store operator can just beat us to death if he thinks about what he's doing and commits to putting up a fight. If he gets his assortment right and makes sure his salespeople have excellent knowledge of the products and how to use them, and goes out of his way to take care of his customers, he can keep plenty of business away from us. We don't have nearly the assortment of a hardware store— plumbing supplies and electrical equipment and specialty tools. And not all of our folks can explain how to fix a leaky faucet or rewire a lamp the way folks in a hardware store should be able to. Our paint customers don't get waited on much either. They have to pick out their own paint and then walk around with it looking for the rest of the things they want. The same is true in sporting goods, where the customer can't expect to get nearly the same kind of service from us as from a specialty store.

The Walmart Museum and Sam’s book may not have changed how I think about Walmart, but they certainly gave me perspective.   Even though Sam has been gone for thirty years, the company seems to make great efforts to have his philosophy permeate the corporate culture.   He’s still an ambassador for the company in many respects. 

Overnight Parking at Walmart

Sam Walton and his family loved the outdoors. As Helen Walton recalls in Sam’s book:

During the Ben Franklin days, we took a month off every year. In fifty-six, I remember we did the whole state of Arkansas. We went to the parks, camped out, and we all fell in love with this state because we really got to know it. That was a marvelous, wonderful time. Then one year we took a long trip to Yellowstone, another year we went to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon, and another time we took a long journey up the East Coast. We took a car full of kids and all our camping equipment strapped on everywhere, and I loved it. Camping was really important in our lives.

As perhaps a legacy of that love of camping, many Walmarts offer free overnight parking for RVers.  According to the corporate Walmart FAQ page:

While we do not offer electrical service or accommodations typically necessary for RV customers, Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers. Consequently, we do permit RV parking on our store lots as we are able. Permission to park is extended by individual store managers, based on availability of parking space and local laws. Please contact management in each store to ensure accommodations before parking your RV.

Fewer and fewer Walmarts permit overnight parking nowadays though. A good place to start to see if a particular Walmart permits overnight parking is the “unofficial” online store locator map below. From what I can tell, the map gets updated fairly regularly.

Because permission to park overnight is granted by individual store managers, it is important to speak with the appropriate store manager.  Different managers may give different answers regarding overnight RV parking.

For those who take advantage of free overnight parking, remember that “overnight” means a single night.  The idea is that some Walmarts have space to park a rig and get some rest before leaving the following morning. It is always good to patronize the store, if possible.  The Walmart parking lot isn’t a campground either so common courtesy says that overnighters shouldn’t set up grills, chairs, or other items in the parking lot. In other words, do not camp in a Walmart parking lot.

Final Thoughts

I was expecting the Walmart Museum to be a quick one-hour experience. It turned out to be much more. I couldn’t tell you who founded K-Mart or Target or most other retailers. But I do know a lot about about Sam Walton and Walmart. I’m sure that the new renovated museum will be tell the story even better. If you are in Northwest Arkansas, the Walmart Museum is worth a stop.