The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-11-12
These Are the Great Principals
Through Which
CAPACITY is DOUBLED
In the Large Store Established
i'm Topeka
Less Than Four Short Months
Ago.

kansas-The Jones Dry Goods Com
pany of Topeka and Kansas City
who today announce on the eighth
page the doubling of their store ca
pacity.
Less than four months ago the firm
purchased the Model department store
of Kemper & Paxton and at once in
troduced those methods that had made
their store the biggest in Kansas City,
Mo.
Today they are getting in shape for
the Monday opening of their new To-
peka addition-the Hamilton building
which will give them more than
double their present big original store
here.
The three principles which have
brought this expansion so quickly and
made it necessary are:
Big, JudiciOus, truthful advertising
Lowest spot cash prices.
Complete satisfaction or money back
That really tells the whole story.
1.-THE policy of the store,'' said Mr.
]. Logan Jones, lis very simple, and
there is absolutely no mystery about it
In any part or particular. 1t is our
purpose by using cash to pay for the
goods and our experience in finding
plisces and conditions for underbuying
our merchandise cheaper than any
OtnCE SlOIe whatsoever.
1T is our purpose by selling for spot
cash, taking no risks and having no
losses, to sell the merchandise for less
money than other stores can afford to
cheaply as we do.
1T is our purpose to let the people
know the facts about our merchandise
through the medium of truthful adver-
Using, SO they will come to us and buy
what they need. 1t is our purpose a
sellers OF merchandise to take all the
risks relating to quality and satisfac-
ton in the merchandise by saying with
each transaction, Satisfaction or money
back
so it is boiled down into; Under
Buy for cash, Under Sell for Cash, Let
the people know it, and guarantee
satisfaction in every sale This is no
cheap, hot air clap trap, but it is the
fundamental and honest basis on
which our business has been built,
and on which it rests today
Here is the story of the growth of
the Kansas City store as told by the
Jones Brothers themselves, and if they
keep up the present rates of growth
in Topeka, the Topeka store will grow
faster than the Kansas City store:
On a little Illinois farm that stretch
ed away into the forests, by the coun-
try roadside, as boys we dreamed of
the great business world that we knew
thrObbed and noisily rumbIed far from
our home. In the newspapers that
came to the little country postoffice
which we kept. we learned of the
achievements of men then great, but
who have since been submerged in the
ceaseless flood of years. Interspersed
between days spent at district school
were the other days of laborious work
opening QUE little farm in the wooded
wilderness. Then came our first great
victory-a certificate to teach school;
then the arduOuS work of school teach
ing; then from the farm and the school
room We went to reach the goal of our
life ambition-a start in the business
world.
Begun With Stock of $35S.OO.
On December 3, 1879, at a flag station
on a, new railroad in southern Illinois,
a mile from our little home farm, we
first opened for business. The store
occupied a single room twenty by forty
feet in size, and we had a stock of 1858
worth Of goods. How swiftly, how i'm
patiently the business grew from the
start. The most restless, most agrees
sive tactics were adopted from the out
set Soon we had another building
erected beside the first. it being twenty
by eighty feet in extent. Three years
at this little station and we had out
grown the location.
Then we went to the county seat,
seven miles away and purchased the
biggest store there. Within a year, we
were knocking out partitions, adding
new rooms to accommodate the ex-
panding business. In the autumn of
1885, we passed through Kansas City on
our way to Stafford, Kansas. Follow
ed with our household goods and all
the merchandise we possessed in the
world.
Started in Kansas at Stafford in 1887
in Room 2Ox6O Feet.
We had seen prosperous DAYS but
the storms of business adversely had
swept over us. Out of the wreck and
ruin. we crawled with a mere handful
of goods, and with determined hearts
started for the west where we believed
we could build up anew in the wild
plains country a name and business
that had been wrecked through no
fault of ours Facing the black storms
or adversely and criticism with serene
smiles of confidence and faith that
saw naught but success that was to be
builded out of the future. we opened
the little store that is here pictured, in
1887, at Stafford, Kansas, which was a
little town of seven or eight hundred
people-a mere speck on the limitIess
plains. There were five stores in the
town larger than this little chunk of
dynamite. After the disastrous cam
paign in the jungles of the credit will
derness, after the all-but-fataI conflict
with the two business demons of
"Charge-it'' and Partnership" we
pulled ourselves together in this little
town situated in the heart of the
sparsely settled short grass country.
With a little remnant of a stock of
goods, aggregating less than IS, 500, with
afather and mother who had sold their
little farm and come to our aid-come
as dhScAS OuN VI Tie OoIh ClOuuS OF us
aster-with this combined capital we
started again the fight of our lives for
victory. The little store grew so that
within four months a tWenty-foot ad-
dition was builded onto the end maxi
ing it eighty feet deep.
Within a little over a year. this store
was outgrown and we took a new brick
store twenty-five by one hundred feet
two floors. The picture is here giv~l
above the date of 1889.
During that year, being the last of
our stay at Stafford the business ran