J. C. PENNEY STORE

The J. C. Penney Store opened at 166-168 Main Avenue, between the G. C. Murphy 5 & 10 on the south, and Ralston’s Drug Store on the north, on Thursday, August 31, 1928. It counted as No. 1007 in the chain’s total of 1,024 stores at that time and was the sixth to open in West Virginia, after stores in Bluefield, Grafton, Martinsburg, Parkersburg, and Welch. In 1934, the local store participated in a national celebration of the founding of the J. C. Penney company 32 years previously, and the founder himself, James Cash Penney, visited Weston in late January to mark the occasion. In addition to greeting customers at the store, he spoke at the local Rotary luncheon, and then addressed high school students at a special assembly. At that time, J. C. Penney stores across the country numbered around 1,480. In May 1946, Weston’s store moved from its initial location into the building at 230 Main, which was built in 1930, remodeled and enlarged in 1955, and still stands today. The building originally housed the F. W. Woolworth 5 & 10. Although J. C. Penney’s original idea of a so-called co-operative partnership of stores that would purchase inventory collectively and also benefit from centralized book-keeping and accounting was without question innovative for its time at the beginning of the 20th century, towards the end of the century, competition from similarly inspired and organized but even more diversified store chains, like Wal-Mart, simply surpassed the offerings of the local store in both inventory and pricing, and it finally closed in January 1992.