Residents love return of retail giant, some of everything.

If his partners had gotten their way, J.C. Penney's company history would have been initiated in Ogden, not in Kemmerer, Wyo., and this week's return of the retail giant to Weber County would have just been another point in an even longer history here.

But the store's return to the county only revives another "what-if" tale for the area.

As the story goes, in 1901, James Cash Penney was a clerk in The Golden Rule store in Evanston when his employer, William Guy Johnson, and his partner, Thomas Callahan, approached him about opening a new store.

They wanted Penney to manage it as a full partner. The proposed location was Ogden.

But Penney, a native of Missouri, preferred smaller community settings to the bustle of the big city, said Joan Gosnell, a JC Penney Co. Inc. historian.

She works as a university archivist at the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where the JC Penney collection of documents and photographs is housed.

Penney recommended opening the first store in Diamondville, Wyo., or Kemmerer. The partners decided on Kemmerer.

"Penney was a small-town boy. Ogden was just too big," Gosnell said of the prospective move. She said the city's population of 35,000 at the time was daunting for Penney, who wanted an environment where he knew his customers personally.
Penney bought out his partners and struck out on his own in 1907, eventually moving his base to Utah. The company's headquarters were in Salt Lake City from 1909 to 1913, before they were moved to New York.

The company's name was changed to J.C. Penney Co. while it was headquartered in Utah.

JC Penney did eventually come to Ogden, but it wasn't until Jan. 5, 1928, that the retailer opened a business in Weber County. Ten years later, it moved to 2383 Washington Blvd.
There, it expanded to 81,560 square feet of retail space over three floors, plus a basement. The old store was closed in 1981 and relocated to the Ogden City Mall. The mall store closed at the end of 2000.

The store's return to Riverdale is a welcome sight for South Ogden resident Audrey Rice, who grew up going to the old store at 24th Street and Washington Boulevard.

She said the old Penney's store was more than a retail giant -- it was a social gathering place.

"We'd meet our friends, and Mother would meet her friends there, and we would stand and talk," said Rice, who has fond memories of the old store that include a unique system of making change.

"When you would make a purchase in the store and give the clerk money, if she needed change, it went through a vacuum tube up to the office and came back through the tube to the clerk on the floor," Rice said.

Helen Madison, of Ogden, worked for three years as a phone operator at the old Penney's store. She said she is glad the company has returned to Weber County.  "You bet I'm going to the store," she said of the new retail location.
Madison remembers a retailer who had a broad selection of items.  "You could get some of everything," she said. That everything included what Madison describes as "nice dresses and house dresses."

The store that was known as offering some of everything now operates 1,037 stores in all states except Hawaii. There are also stores in Puerto Rico. The company's headquarters are in the Dallas suburb of Plano.