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Sam Walton was born in March 29, 1918, in the town of Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He was the son of a banker by the name of Thomas Walton, and his wife, Nancy Lee.
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Early in his life, Walton was moved with his family to Missouri, where they raised him. He was a good student as well as a good athlete. He was also the quarterback for his highschool, and an eagle scout besides. At the time when he graduated, he was named by his classmates "most versatile boy."
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He then went to college to the University of Missouri in Columbia. After four years, he graduated in 1940 with a degree in economics.
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Sam Walton scored his first retail job in DesMoines, working and learning at a management training program at a J.C Penney store, working their until he became an Army Captain in WW2
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Sam Walton was drafted into WW2, and he became a communicator officer for the Army Intelligence Corps, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. He was released from his service in 1945.
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Sam Walton married in the midst of WW2, to his love, Helen. He and Helen had four children, by the names of S. Robson, John, James, and Alice.
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Sam Walton came back to his private life in 1945, and with a wife and child to support, he needed to find work quickly. With a 20,000$ loan from his father, he bought his first store, a Ben Franklin store.
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Over a period of less than 20 years, Sam worked with his younger brother, James, and made enough to purchase store after store, until they had fifteen stores in all.
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Due to some disagreements Sam Walton had with the executives of the Ben Franklin stores, Sam decided to try to do business in an unprecedented way; he would try to discount all of his goods in small towns. He mortgaged his house, and made the first Wal-Mart in Bentonville. It was an instant success.
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As time went on, Wal-mart became more and more popular. in the 1990s, when economic downturn was not good, Walmart's profits increased by 40 percent.
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The Forbes magazine named Sam Walton the richest man in America. It irritated him, because he thought that it made his life more difficult to give him a net amount.
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Sam Walton, after 26 years of being the CEO of Walmart, gave the job over to an executive named David Glass. Sam, however, stayed chairman of Walmart.
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Sam Walton was diagnosed with two types of cancer; he had hairy cell lukemia, and he also had bone marrow cancer. He was admitted into the University of Arkansas Hospital in 1992.
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President George Bush presented Sam the medal of Freedom, for his entrepreneurial spirit among other things.
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In the hospital, Sam Walton died of Bone Marrow cancer.
