State

The Rise of Rose I». II. Ko.so started out with nothing'. Today, he and his as¬ sociates control a chain of stores that are located in several states and are doing a tremendous business. THERE are sixty-five of Rose’s 5, 10 & 25c stores in North Caro¬ lina. There are a total of one hundred and twenty-two of these establish¬ ments in North and South Caro¬ lina, Georgia, Virginia and Tenn¬ essee. There are more Rose stores in North Carolina than there are branches of any other chain of variety stores. Rose's 5, 10 & 25c stores have consistently shown a higher per¬ centage in increased sales than any other variety stores in this or any other state. They employ more than 3,000 people normally, and more than 5,000 during the Christmas rush season. With these facts for a starter, let’s proceed to look into the start and growth of this interesting business. It represents one of the outstanding mercantile successes in this part of the country. It started from scratch — with bor¬ rowed capital of $500. The total assets of the one hundred and twenty-two stores today are well over $2,600,000. You can’t tell the story of the Standard Oil Company without bringing in the story of John D. Rockefeller. You can’t tell the story of the Ford Motor Company without dragging in Henry Ford. And, although he does not par¬ ticularly desire personal publicity, you can't tell the story of Rose’s 5, 10 & 25c stores without bring¬ ing in Mr. P. H. Rose. He was born in Jackson. North¬ ampton County. A few years later, his family moved to Sea¬ board, in the same county. Young P. H. Rose had a mania for selling things. At the age of 12, when most boys are more interested in base¬ ball than they are in merchan¬ dising, P. H. had a store-building of his own. True, it wasn't much of a building — it was only a large dry-goods box, and he had to drag it into a doctor’s office at the close of each day's business — but it was a store, just the same. And he made a little money out of it. He got a fairly good education Mr. P. II. Rose, founder of Rose’s 5, 10 & 25c Stores. — and he proved to be a regular shark when it came to figuring interest — but his mind was cen¬ tered more on business than on an education, and while still in his 'teens, he took up the merchan¬ dising business in a big way. He ran a store in Littleton where, among other innovations, he staged a popular girls contest in connection with candy sales. Each purchaser was given the priv¬ ilege of voting for his favorite in the popularity contest on a basis of the quantity of candy bought. Standing of the contest¬ ants was posted each evening and much interest was evidenced by the public on the outcome of each day’s voting. They sold more candy than Littleton ever had seen before. The idea proved to be a whale of a success, and Mr. Rose carried it out in several other towns. Of course, it goes without saying that he made a nice little profit out of all the candy he sold. A large Northern manufacturer heard of the scheme and hired him to travel through the South, selling candy. He made a success¬ ful salesman, but he didn’t like the idea of traveling all the time, so after a couple of years he gave it up. While going all over the coun¬ try, he became interested in the problem of buying, and he started out to organize merchants of dif¬ ferent towns into a wholesale buyers’ association. He figured out that twenty or thirty mer¬ chants could get much better val¬ ues than could just one merchant, buying on his own initiative. The plan worked out very successfully. A little while later, Mr. Rose, together with three associates, went into the variety store busi¬ ness. They opened up a store in Henderson and also opened up three others located in three dif¬ ferent North Carolina towns. Later, this organization was dis¬ solved, and Mr. Rose, with $500 borrowed capital, took over the Henderson store himself. With this he started off anew, and this time everything went along in fine fashion. The Henderson store made money from the very start. It wasn’t long before a branch was opened in Oxford, and it, too, met with success. It was back in 1915 that he took over the Henderson store. The Oxford store was opened the following year, with Mr. T. B. Rose, Jr., a younger brother, as manager. In 1917 store number three at Louisburg and store num¬ ber four at Roxboro were opened. By the end of 1925, ten years after starting business, the stores num¬ bered twenty-six. On May 1, 1927, the business was formed into a corporation and the resultant $110,000 additional working capital was profitably em¬ ployed in expansion. The officers of the new corporation were P. H. Rose, president and treasurer; T. B. Rose, Jr., vice-president and secretary. The directors were P. H. Rose. T. B. Rose, Jr., D. H. Gerber, R. W. Bruin, В. H. Perry and Harry O. Latham. The stores continued to steadily JO