J.C. Penney Closing 140 Stores, No Word on Faribault

J.C. Penney has announced plans to close up to 140 of its stores.

The iconic retailer says it will close 130-140 stores and two distribution centers over the next several months. No word at this time which stores will be closing.

When I first moved to Faribault in June 1987, the J.C. Penney store was downtown and it moved to the Faribo West Mall in November 1991.

On a few of my world travels, former J.C. Penney manager Fred Klokonos has been along and he said the move was a good one for the store.

J.C Penney has 1,014 stores in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Minnesota has 25 stores.

Texas has the most J.C. Penney stores with 91, followed by California with 79 and Florida with 55.

The closures represent about 13-14 percent of the company's stores and are being announced at a time when the department store industry is sagging due to competition from online retailers.

Earlier this week, Macy's announced it's on track to close 100 stores over the next few years.

J.C. Penney stores are great American success story. The following history comes from the company website.

James Cash Penney grew up on a farm in Hamilton, Mo., and began his first store in Kemmerer, Wyo. It was called the Golden Rule Store. In his first year the store had $28,898 in sales. He bought out his two partners in 1907 and, at the time, they had three stores.

He opened his first J.C. Penney store on April 14, 1902, and it was a one-room wooden building. By 1912 he had 34 stores and more than $2 million in sales. The company grew to 83 stores by 1915.

J.C. Penney was innovative, too. His first store was a cash-only business and he used that business model until the 1950s.

In 1958, J.C. Penney started their first credit card. Like other cards of its day, it was more like a charge card because you were required to pay in full each month. You couldn't carry over any balance and there was no revolving line of credit. The interest rate was 7 percent. The first credit card I ever had was a J.C. Penney card.

At its peak in 1973, J.C. Penney had 2,053 stores.

About the same time the J.C. Penney closed in downtown Faribault and moved to the Faribo West Mall to become an anchor store along with a new Walmart, J.C. Penney stores were closed in Owatonna, Waseca, New Ulm, St. James and Little Falls.

The store nearly doubled in size after moving from downtown to the mall.

In 2007, a Super Walmart was built in Faribault, separate from the Faribo West Mall. Some mall tenants told KDHL the move did affect their store traffic.