Serving eastern Utah for a century: Price JC Penney store turns 100

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When Rhea Timothy and Peggy Fredricksen were little girls, their mothers took them shopping at the JC Penney store in Price.

Now ages 85 and 65, respectively, they still shop there.

"I love that store," said Fredricksen, who will be there Saturday morning when Price Mayor Joe Piccolo presides over a ribbon-cutting ceremony and hands over a key to the city to current store Manager Leslie Childs to mark the 100th anniversary of Penney's presence in Price.

"In a little place like Price, we didn't have an awful big choice of stores, and Penney's was always the best," added Timothy. "Penney's has always had the best clerks I can think of. They are a nice bunch of women. I don't go anywhere else."

Those are magical endorsements to Childs, who also accompanied her mother as a child and now has worked there 29 years doing every job there was to do, from working in the stock room to running the show.

"I have people from out of state who remember this store and love the old JC Penney home-town feel of being in Price," she said. "Mostly what they love about this store is we've kept our building the same."

That means children's clothing and home furnishings in the basement, women's and men's fashion's on the main level, juniors' and lingerie on the mezzanine.

"I like the way they handle their clothes," Timothy said. "You don't have to go in there and hunt all around. They're hung up, all of them neat."

If, by chance, a shopper can't find what she is looking for, Fredricksen and Timothy agree the staff is -- always has been -- great about helping out.

"They will go out of their way to take care of you. That's something I've appreciated as much as anything else," Fredricksen said. "Penney's is just a good standby, a staple store. You feel comfortable when you shop there. I don't know if that makes a lot of difference to other people, but it does to me. It's homey."

When she started, manager Childs said many clerks were women who had worked there since her childhood.

"Now my children's friends are asking them 'how long has your mother been here?' This says a lot for the company, and says the same thing for the [employees]. They were here for the long term," said Childs, proud to be the first female manager in that century.

Part of that long-term loyalty will be on display today. Childs has arranged for former store managers Von Wayman, now of Richfield, and Dale Allred, of Lindon, to participate in the celebration.

There will be celebrities, too. Rep. Jim Matheson is scheduled to be there around 2:30 p.m., Gov. Gary Herbert at 3:15 p.m.

JC Penney corporate spokesman Tim Lyons, out of Plano, Texas, is proud of the chain's longevity in Price and the loyalty of people such as Timothy and Fredricksen.

"It shows that we have been able to adapt and change to meet our customers' needs over the years. That is what has kept us going," he said. "We've always talked about having relationships with customers. We have many loyal customers in Price who keep coming back, again and again, because of the service they have received."

Originally called The Golden Rule, the Price store was the 12th opened by (Mr.) J.C. Penney (the first, the "Mother Store," was in Kemmerer, Wyo., opening in 1902). It started a block from its present location, moving in the mid-1940s.

To mark both eras, Childs has "done a then-and-now thing." She decorated one of the store's two display windows with dresses, suits and hats from the 1920s and '30s.

"I've had a lot of positive response from the community," she said. "There's not too many of these small town, three-level, no escalator stores left. People like that."