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Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Explore Sam Walton's Legacy At The Newly Reopened Walmart Museum
Sam Walton's truck sits outside his first store in Bentonville, Arkansas, now the Walmart Museum, and harks backs to the time before his meteoric rise to Walmart fame. Kate Cousins Photography Courtesy of Visit Bentonville Full disclosure: I am not a museum person. Despite my age, I often see them through kids' eyes—as repositories for dusty relics and things of the past that have no relevance to my life today. But there is hope for me yet, as I discovered on a visit to Bentonville. There, in the main square, was a retro storefront that took me back to old TV shows, when shoppers would approach the counter with a list and the employee would do all the shopping, securing the items, bagging them, and adding the cost to the customer's account. I wandered in, curious about what I would find, and indeedy, it was like stepping back in time. The Walmart Museum is housed in the original Walton's 5&10 store owned by Sam Walton, who moved to Bentonville with his new wife in 1950 and called it his home until his death. Inside the door, you are greeted with an old-timey store selling vintage candy like hard lemon drops and Sugar Babies. Then you'll take a self-guided tour through the museum, learning the history of the Walton family and walking the timeline that illustrates the growth of Walmart. Kids of all ages learn about Sam Walton's legacy at the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Drager Creative Courtesy of Visit Bentonville Displays and informational placards along the way are fascinating. Did you know Walton was the first to conceive of the idea of 'self-service shopping,' in which shoppers walk the aisles and select their own merchandise? Did you know that he commissioned a manufacturer to create a plastic hose to transform the expensive hula hoop (all the rage at the time) into an affordable toy for everyone? These are the trivia tidbits you'll enjoy as you make your way through the museum. It's truly inspiring to witness the innovations and entrepreneurship behind Walmart's stratospheric growth from the time the first store opened in 1962 until today. The company exploded in the 1970s after going public on the New York Stock Exchange, at the same time adopting the infamous slogan 'everyday low prices,' a genius marketing move during a hard-hitting recession. While all of this will impress you, you'll also find it relatable. Here's why. As you gaze at the display cases, you'll recognize most, if not all of the items, depending on your age. You'll see toys you played with as a kid and toys you purchased for your own kids. You'll recognize that old, loud hairdryer and that painful electric razor and every household item you've ever owned. The first floor is really a stroll through pop culture, and people of every generation can appreciate it. The timeline of Walmart's rise is so interesting, you'll find yourself reading every placard and remembering the good old days. Drager Creative Courtesy of Visit Bentonville The second floor transports you to the 21st century, and the exhibits cleverly reflect that. They incorporate technology and introduce interactive components that are a lot of fun. You'll also learn about Walmart's extensive philanthropic efforts, including working with Dolly Parton to raise many millions of dollars for communities in need. In one room meant to look like a studio, visitors can ask a hologram Sam Walton a question and get an answer, something that will likely go viral on Instagram once the word is out. Of course, much of the museum is dedicated to Sam Walton himself. You'll see his office, recreated as he left it, along with the old pickup truck he never traded in for a shinier model. Why would he? As he said, a sports car wouldn't carry his hunting dogs, guns, and fishing poles. Walton never adopted pretention, never put on airs. He became interchangeable with Bentonville, with hard work, with innovation, and with humility, and those lessons are pleasantly surprising takeaways from the Walmart Museum.
Forbes
28-03-2025
- Forbes
Bentonville, Arkansas Booms With Arts And Outdoors Offerings.
Just reopened after years of restoration, the Walmart Museum expands on the original Walton's 5-10 store, located on Bentonville's main square. As travel ventures go, arts and cycling are about as incongruous as you can imagine. Or, are they? Not in Bentonville, the small Northwest Arkansas town known mostly by outsiders for its Walmart connection. The city is booming with newcomer residents, and in a few short years visitors have been packing museums and hitting bike trails galore. And, you can do it all in one day. Let's start in the middle, as in Bentonville's main square that is getting revitalized on all four sides. After several years of a full-on gut redesign of the original Walton's 5-10 that had been turned into the Walmart Museum, the whole enterprise has just reopened with double the amount of exhibition space. Filled with state of the art displays, the museum also has homey touches like Sam Walton's original wood paneled office and his beloved red pickup. The Masterpiece trail is just one biking highlight along Bentonville's insanely extensive network. Anyone who remembers the '50s will recognize simple home goods packaging. Anyone who came of age in the '80s will get a chuckle—or groan—out of the Walmart advertising inserts that cleverly have been turned into wallpaper of fresh faced youngsters in questionable jeans and haircuts. And don't miss Dolly Parton's colorful vintage outfit that's on display to acknowledge her work with the Walmart Foundation on hurricane relief. After your visit, expect lines outside on the main square for the museum's popular Spark Café ice cream shop. In a coffee industry ranking, Northwest Arkansas's Onyx Coffee Lab was just named best shop in North America, second in the world. As the price of fame for them, and the price of quality for you, expect a long line right off the square for your heavenly jolt. A block over, the Faherty haberdashery takes up a stunning original bank building with its vault still intact. And with food trucks and drinks establishments all around, you could literally spend the day just around the square. Bentonville is officially the Mountain Biking Capital of the World. Dispute that if you wish, but the city's biking guide outlines 29 separate greenways alone. Opened in 2020, the Coler Mountain Bike Preserve is not only for bikers, but it's where you'll find just as many families strolling the main concrete artery to land up some 20 minutes later at the café Airship at the Homestead. Sit on swings inside the open-walled concrete structure to enjoy your tacos and beer, or take them up on the roof, or sit in an onsite historic barn. Part of Bentonvile's OZ Art NWA public arts program, Stefan Sagmeister's "Lakes and Rivers" shimmering fish are next to the Ledger building with its bike ramp to the roof. If biking does call you, The YT Mill, an outlet of this high-end German made brand, will set you up with a test-drive. On your return, you can sit back with a beer in their gym-sized space and contemplate your choices of a wheels purchase. Next door, and across from the new Motto hotel, the six-story copper-clad and glass Ledger offices and cultural hub is surely the only building you've ever ridden up on outdoor switchback ramps. That's how serious Bentonville biking is, that you can simply pedal up the outside of a building. It also has an Airship coffee shop downstairs for good measure in this coffee mad town. Lovely mosaic tiles of native Ozark insects are placed all along the concrete path. Up top is the perfect vantage point to take in another of Austrian graphic artist Stefan Sagmeister's works of a different scale. Plastered several-stories high on a parking garage concrete wall next door, Lakes and Rivers (2023) is made up of countless stainless steel disks that form two fish whose scales shimmer and shake in the breeze. The mesmerizing creation is just one of 400 works in the citywide OZ Art NWA program. With restaurants popping up all over and attracting accomplished chefs, Bentonville city's dining guide lists 207 establishments. A speakeasy behind an art gallery, the tiki room meets high design Callisto bar is as smart a venue as any you'd find in Brooklyn, with exotic cocktails you've never heard of. For all that's brand new in Bentonville, take an hour and get a feel for the past at the Peel Museum & Botanical Garden. The late 19th-century mansion is filled with furnishings and personal artifacts such as a fine wedding dress that belonged to the Peel family of apple orchard owners from the time when Bentonville was the orchard town. In barely more than a decade, the Moshe Safdie-designed Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has built a major collection, with much more to come. Nearby, your entry into the Museum of Native American History is dramatic enough with a mammoth skeleton that shrieks as you open the door. Arrowheads and pottery galore go back millennia, while Plains Indians headdresses and Osage war clubs represent just some of the holdings from the recent past. Even if you're not looking to join Walmart, it makes for yet another fine and easy bike ride to reach the company's new lake-and native-landscaped campus along a section of the 40 mile-long Razorback Greenway. As you zip around Bentonville by foot or on two wheels, you'll enjoy all the charms for sure of a small town. But you ain't really in small town America at all here anymore. Read more on Bentonville's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its satellite cultural hub The Momentary.
