Lucius Lowe founded North Wilkesboro Hardware — a general merchandise store — in Wilkesboro, North Carolina in 1921.
After the founder's death in 1940, the store went to his daughter Ruth. She sold the business to her brother Jim, and kept the store running while he and her husband Carl Buchan served in World War II.
In 1943, Jim Lowe took on Buchan as a partner. Lowe's officially became a general merchandise chain in 1949 and boasted 15 stores in total by 1960.
The pair split up in 1952, with Lowe taking on the grocery side of the business and Buchan sticking with hardware.
Buchan's vision helped the company capitalize on the post-war building boom, and would pave the way for the modern-day Lowe's.
The company's executive team — Leonard Herring, Pete Kulynych, Joe Reinhardt, John Walker, and Bob Strickland — enacted a profit-sharing plan to allow the employees to own the company.
Lowe's said that 1984 marked the first year it raked in $1 billion in sales. That year saw the company net $25 million in profits.
In a statement on its history, Lowe's said that the "modern" iteration of its company began in 1994.
That being said, Lowe's' early rise from a small-town general store to a forward-looking hardware chain represents the momentum that the company would use to grow into the one of largest home-improvement retailers in the country.
Source: Business Insider, "Make It New: Essays in the History of American Business," "Principles of Supply Chain Management," Business North Carolina, Wilkes Journal Patriot, Lowe's, The New York Times, Crunchbase
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