LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Sam Walton, the feisty business pioneer who never lost touch with his Arkansas roots as he built Wal-Mart into the nation's largest retail chain, died Sunday. He was 74.
He underwent treatment for leukemia in the early 1980s and was diagnosed with bone cancer in 1990. He was hospitalized for treatment of the disease when he died.
Walton was a shrewd businessman who used high-tech management and lots of cheerleading to sell employees on a philosophy of efficiency and service to the customer.
That philosophy enabled Wal-Mart, which began with a single store in Rogers, Ark., in 1962, to ring up $43.89 billion in 1991 sales and dethrone Sears, Roebuck and Co. as the nation's largest retailer early in 1991.
It also made Samuel Moore Walton one of the richest people in the United States. In October 1991, Forbes magazine placed him and his four children as Nos. 3 to 7 on its list of the wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of $4.4 billion each.
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton , a Democratic presidential candidate, called Walton a charitable man.
'' Hillary and I treasured Sam Walton's friendship and we will miss him very much,'' Clinton said. ''He was ... one of the greatest citizens in the history of the state of Arkansas.''
Walton died about 8 a.m. at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital, where he had been more than a week, Wal-Mart officials said.
Born March 29, 1918, in Kingfisher, Okla., he attended the University of Missouri, receiving a bachelor's degree in economics in 1940. He went to work as a management trainee at J.C. Penney Co., then served in the Army from 1942 to 1945.
After the war, Walton opened a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Ark. He moved it to Bentonville, Ark., in 1950 and renamed it Walton's 5&10. Walton and his sometime partner, brother James L. (Bud) Walton , eventually operated 15 Ben Franklin stores.
Walton opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City store in 1962. By 1969, there were 18 stores, but the company began growing explosively in the 1980s, sometimes adding hundreds of new stores a year, most of them in small towns.
As of March 31, 1992, there were 1,735 Wal-Marts and 212 Sam's Wholesale Club warehouse stores.
''There was a lot more business in those towns than people ever thought,'' Walton once said.
The stores' reputation for low prices and good service stole business from rival retailers including K mart and Sears. Edward A. Brennan , chairman and chief executive officer of Sears, mourned his death.
''He was a great merchant, a great leader and a great competitor,'' Brennan said.
Last month, Walton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President Bush. Bush on Sunday reiterated his March 17 praise of Walton.
''Sam Walton was an American original who embodied the entrepreneurial spirit and epitomized the American dream,'' he said.
In his private life, Walton avoided most interviews and kept the common touch. He occasionally drove his pickup from his home outside the little Ozark Mountain town of Bentonville to the town square to shop for groceries and get haircuts.
When Walton was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of bone cancer, he sent a memo to all the company's stores, saying he didn't want employees he called them ''associates'' to hear it from someone else.
Walton's stores were able to undercut competitors because of the company's high-tech distribution system, including bar-code scanners to track inventory as well as ring up a customers' purchases.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by three sons, S. Robson Walton and Jim Walton, both of Bentonville, Ark., and John Walton of National City, Calif; a daughter, Alice, of Lowell, Ark.; and 10 grandchildren. A private funeral was planned.
