History of The Big Box

Photo above is of the first Big Box – Eastchester, NY 1971

When Walton Bernie was growing up, he had a vision… he saw vast, paved parking lots, filled with dusty automobiles. He saw massive, masonry structures filled with aisles upon aisles upon aisles of products. He saw thousands of cash registers, merrily ringing up hundreds of millions of sales dollars.

From a humble beginning in Eastchester, New York, where Walton opened his first store in 1971, his vision has grown. His Big Box stores number over 1,400 and collectively cover almost 17,000 square miles (including parking lots). Factories that supply his stores employ over 10,000 children, from countries as far away as Thailand.

Walton’s first store was not an immediate success. People weren’t immediately comfortable buying food and pesticides in one location. Many people were resentful when their local pharmacist, local supermarket, local clothing shop, local hardware store, and every other local store closed down. But soon, consumers began flocking to the Big Box like giant herds of sheep. They were thrilled with the huge selection, ecstatic about the great prices, awed by the sheer size of the store. It also helped that all the local shops had closed down. Walton was thrilled, and he decided that what he had done to Eastchester, he could do to all of America, and make money doing it as well!

The Big Box is committed to impacting every town in America, even those considered too puny and insignificant to deserve our attention.  We are developing new and better ways to suck money from small towns, like our new Village of Idiot’s Hardware.

The opening of Big Box stores has led to greater efficiency in towns all over America… a single Big Box store can replace ten or fifteen local stores, stores that used to employ several hundred employees now get by with a tenth as many. Employees who used to have full-time jobs can now work part-time, with more free hours during the week to enjoy leisure activities.