Due to the variety store's enormous success, the landlord, P.K. Holmes, refused to renew the lease when it expired, desiring to pass the store onto his son. The lack of a renewal option, together with the outrageous rent of 5% of sales, were early business lessons to Walton. Despite forcing Walton out, Holmes bought the store's inventory and fixtures for $50,000, which Walton called "a fair price".

A chain of Ben Franklin stores
Walton went on to open more Ben Franklin Stores with the help of his brother, father-in-law, and brother-in-law. In 1954, he opened a store with his brother James "Bud" Walton in a shopping center in Ruskin Heights, a suburb of Kansas City. He opened another in Arkansas, but it failed to be as successful as his other stores. Walton decided to concentrate on the retail business instead of the shopping centers and opened larger stores which were called "Walton's Family Center."

Walton offered managers the opportunity to become limited partners if they would invest in the store they oversaw and then invest a maximum of $1,000 in new outlets as they opened. This motivated the managers to always try to maximize profits and improve their managerial skills. By 1962, Walton and his brother Bud owned sixteen variety stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas (fifteen Ben Franklin and the one independent Fayetteville store).

Legacy
In 1985, Sam Walton began a program designed to stem the 'tide of communism' in Central America by promoting capitalism and privatization.

In 1998, Walton was included in Time's list of 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. Walton was honored for all his pioneering efforts in retail in March 1992, when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush. Also that year, the Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China awarded him the Golden Star Foreigner's Award for "tireless assistance in the development of People's owned factories in the Suzhou area".

Forbes ranked Sam Walton as the richest man in the United States from 1982 to 1988, ceding the top spot to John Kluge in 1989 when the editors began to credit Walton's fortune jointly to him and his four children. (Bill Gates first headed the list in 1992, the year Walton died). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. also runs Sam's Club warehouse stores. Wal-Mart stores operate in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
At the University of Arkansas, the Business College (Sam M. Walton College of Business) is named in his honor.

Mr.Walton was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1992.

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