History
Samuel Proctor McRae founded McRae’s Department Stores in1902 in a 1500 square foot store on Capitol Street in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. That original store was sandwiched between two much larger clothing stores. According to the story both competitors would announce big sales at the same time and Mr. Sam would put up an eye-catching sign on his door that read “Main Entrance.” Enough paying customers went through the “Main Entrance” to move McRae’s Department Store in 1916 several doors down the street where it would remain for the next 54 years.
Sam McRae was known throughout the Jackson community for operating his business with the utmost integrity and absolute honesty. McRae’s success in its first half century is attributed to building customer loyalty by offering dependable, fashionable merchandise at reasonable prices.
A landmark expansion increased the size of the original McRae’s store by seven times in 1951 and soon thereafter McRae’s capitalized on the ever-growing suburban population with its opening of a new store in Meadowbrook Shopping Center.
McRae’s employees were called “Associates.” They benefited from McRae’s successes through a company-wide profit-sharing program, a pension plan, and a comprehensive stock ownership program. All designed to treat “Associates” as part of the “McRae” family.
At its peak McRae’s employed over 7,000 Associates. McRae’s pioneered many retail innovations such as computerized cash registers, OCR Wands, store credit cards, liberal return policies, and telephone merchandise ordering. McRae’s was well known for its “Solid Gold Credit Cards” that enhanced brand loyalty among customers.
Much of the success of McRae’s can be attributed to Mr. Sam’s son Richard McRae. Richard lived the typical life of a store owners’ child. He would run the cash stand on Saturday mornings and in high school he would drive the delivery truck.
Richard had to deal with his share of struggles when his mother past away at the age of eight and just a few years later he contracted osteomyelitis and underwent more than a dozen surgeries while in his teens.
After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1942, but being unable to serve in the military in World War II, Richard became the youngest field director in the European theater for the American Red Cross.
In the early 1950's Richard took over the family department store business and embarked on changes that transformed McRae's from a one-store operation into one of the most successful family owned department store chains in the country.
McRae’s opened Jackson's first "suburban" department store in 1954 in Meadowbrook Shopping Center in a time when most people thought no one would ever shop outside of downtown. It was a risk that turned out to be the catalyst for McRae's future successes.
McRae's continued to grow in store locations as shopping malls began to expand across the country. McRae’s grew in store base both organically, as well as, through acquisition with the purchase of Pizitz, a Birmingham, AL based department store, in 1986. During the period of 1970 through the early 1990’s McRae’s opened on average one store per year in states across the southeast.
In the 1970's, Richard’s sons Richard Jr. and Vaughan McRae joined the company in leadership roles. Richard McRae Jr. served as President & CEO of the company from 1984 until its sale in 1994. Vaughan and Richard Jr’s leadership contributed to the rapid expansion of the company's store footprint, enhanced merchandise selection carried within the stores, and continued the customer first approach to business.
From humble beginnings to the largest privately-owned Department Store in the country for over 100 years McRae's served the needs of countless people throughout Mississippi and the Southeast.
