Dollargeneral.com - Dollar General Stores. Dollar General Stores are a chain of variety stores founded in 1939 by Cal Turner. They operate in more than 39 U.S states. It started out with the name J.L. Turner and Son but in 1968 they changed the name to General Stores. When the store opened officially as General Stores the concept was that no item in the store should cost more than a dollar. This proved to be too much of a success until other stores under J.L Turner were converted to General Stores. James Luther Turner’s father died when he was at the tender age of 11 and he was forced to drop out of school to support his mother and sibling. He never got the chance to complete his education and he knew that it put him in a position where he had to learn about the world around him. He then became a travelling dry goods salesman but left the job after 10 years. James Luther’s only son, Cal Turner went into the habit of accompanying his father to closeouts where his father would buy and liquidate bankrupt stores. This enabled the young child to acquire valuable business skills.
J.L died in the year 1964 and his son succeeded him in the business. Under the leadership of Cal Turner Jr. the company soared to sales worth 6 billion and 6000 stores. Cal Jr. retired in 2002.
In 2007 Dollar General Stores’ shares were acquired by private equity investors. And the shares were worth 22.00$ each. The company has also come up with the initiative to close down or relocate stores which don’t have the following; a loading dock, adequate parking, acceptable profitability and garbage dumpsters. In effect almost 400 stores have been closed. In the year 2009 the company announced that it will turn into a publicly traded corporation.
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