Skaggs family

Circa 1887 Samuel M. Skaggs, with his wife Nancy (E. Long) and two of his brothers and their families, moved from Tennessee to Missouri.[2,8] There Sam tried farming and managed a store and post office in Cato, Missouri. Between 1888 and 1900 he entered the Baptist Ministry and by 1900 settled in Newton County, Missouri. At the time of their move from Tennessee, Sam and Nancy had five children; in Missouri they had 10 more. Of the first 11 children, 9 were alive in 1900. Of these there were six sons who came to be known by their initials: :Pepper Oscar Skaggs, born January 7, 1881, became O.P. :Aron Sylvester Skaggs, born January 14, 1886, became S.A. :Marion Barton Skaggs, born April 5, 1888, became M.B. :Loronzo L. Skaggs, born May 5, 1891, became L.L. :Samuel Olnie Skaggs, born November 14, 1895, became L.S. :Levi Justin Skaggs, born May 4, 1899, became L.J. Between 1908 and 1910, Samuel Skaggs brought his family from Missouri to Idaho. As a minister of a small group in a small frontier town, American Falls, Idaho, he needed additional support for his large family. He opened a small grocery store, but to compete with the few that were already operating, he changed its business model from one of credit accounts, which were tailored to the sporadic and seasonal income of farmers, to a cash-only basis. Attracting customers to this simpler arrangement would make sense if he could sell for much less than his competitors. While the margin would be lower, he avoided the risk of non-payment of accounts. To drive down the wholesale price of the groceries he sold, he bought them in larger lots than competitors. In those days large lots were defined by some fraction of a railroad carload, and because American Falls was a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad, this afforded Sam Skaggs an opportunity to buy and sell for less. Perhaps more important to his expansion-oriented sons than to Sam, the savings of large-lot buying increased as more stores came on line. To portray the evolution and impact of the merchandising practiced by Skaggs and to track the creation of stores and their ownership transfers, a nearly 100-year chronology is used. In it lies the genesis of much of the modern merchandising. The Skaggs family anticipated what customers wanted, so the Skaggs brothers and their merchandising model comprise a thread in the fabric of the present commercial world. This chronology begins with Sam Skaggs moving his growing family west: == Timeline of events in the history of the Skaggs family ==

• 1907 S.M. Skaggs leaves Missouri and moves west with his family in search of a better climate. They settle in American Falls, Idaho before 1910 where he is located in that year's census. • 1914 In a separate commercial effort Sam Seelig founds a chain of four stores in California called Sam Seelig Grocers. According to the Safeway web site, this chain grew to over 322 stores by 1926. In 1925 he renamed them Safeway. • 1915 In April, S. M. opens the Skaggs Cash Store "with his own hands, on rented property, on borrowed money." L.S. Jr. is "a private person, a wizard at acquisition, has great enthusiasm for his work, has a management style that pays great attention to detail, and is bare bones…parsimoniously allowing no company cars or credit cards." American has 102,000 employees and after the first nine months of the year, over $8B revenue. American Stores later grew to 1700 stores in 40 states with $15 billion in sales. • 1986 To avoid a hostile takeover by Herbert Haft and family, Safeway agreed to acquisition by Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. for $5.3B, taking the company private in the second largest leverage buyout in history. To pay off incurred debt, nearly half of its 2200 stores were sold, including those in England and Australia. Peter Magowan remained CEO until forced out in 1992, but continued as a director until 2005. Magowan, with supporting partners, later purchases the San Francisco Giants. • 1988 After considerable positioning that moved the purchase price from $45 to $65 per share and opposition from California's attorney general, American Stores acquires Lucky Stores of Dublin CA. [20] Lucky had started as Peninsula Stores (on the San Francisco Peninsula) in 1931 and had become one of California's largest chains with operations in Northern and Southern California. But L.S. Jr. reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 and stepped down as CEO of American Stores; ...moving to Chairman. A period of consolidation and debt reduction begins with sell-offs occurring into the 1990s. Its total holding of stores drops from 1,848 in 1990 to 1,695 in 1996 but profits increased over that period nearly $100M. • 1990 Safeway again goes public and in late 1990 and resumes buying regional chains such as Randalls in Texas, Carrs in Alaska, Dominick's in Illinois, and Vons in Southern California. • 1992 Albertsons purchases 74 Jewel-Osco combination stores from American Stores. • 1995 L.S. Skaggs Jr. relinquishes the Chairmanship of American Stores, and within two years the company purchased $550 million of his shares, leaving him with insufficient ownership to keep his seat on the board. Thus ended the Skaggs family's leadership in the commercial world. • 1998 Albertsons acquires Seessels, Smittys, Buttrey, and some Bruno Stores. • 1999 Albertsons acquires American Stores for $12.7B to become the nation's biggest supermarket chain. Prior to this, Albertsons was the nation's fourth largest supermarket chain with 994 supermarkets in 25 states, while American Stores Company was the nation's second largest supermarket chain with 802 supermarkets and 773 stand-alone drug stores in 31 states. Lucky Stores change name to Albertsons. This merger was so large that the Federal Trade Commission (June 22, 1999) required its largest divestiture ever in forcing the sale of 144 of the combine's supermarkets and sites and also imposed future growth restrictions in specified geographic regions. • 2003 Safeway has approximately 1700 stores across the US and Canada which include 329 Vons stores in Southern California and Nevada, 132 Randall and Tom Thumb stores in Texas, 42 Genuardi's in the Philadelphia area, and 21 Carr's stores in Alaska. Albertsons operates over 2500 stores in 38 states. • 2005 Albertsons, Inc. announced in September that it is considering putting the company up for sale; that the board is exploring strategic alternatives to increase shareholder value. Among the reasons given was increased pressure from Wal-Mart type supercenters. • 2006 On January 23, Albertsons made known that it had agreed to be sold for about $17.4B and broken into three parts. A Minnesota-based grocery chain Supervalu would buy 1,124 Albertsons stores and in-store pharmacies and with 2,656 stores will become the nation's second largest grocery chain after Kroger. CVS, the nation's largest drug store chain, will purchase about 700 stand-alone Sav-on and Osco drug stores for about $4B. The remaining set of about 655 Albertsons grocery stores will be purchased by a financial group led by New York-based Cerberus. The Albertsons name will continue. The sale was said to be due to increased competition from "large-box stores" such as Wal-Mart and specialty stores such as Whole Foods Market. • 2009 - Death of Mary Skaggs in Santa Rosa, California on October 2, age 109 years and 8 months. • 2013 - Albertsons is split from SuperValu along with the former ASC properties (Jewel-Osco, Acme, and Shaws/Star) and sold to Albertsons LLC/Cerebus. • 2013 March 21 Death of L.S. “Sam” Skaggs. == Skaggs Foundations ==

The Skaggs sons established a number of charitable organizations. The ALSAM Foundation has funded education and health research in the form of scholarships as well as the establishment or funding of a number of university and research centers. The Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper, Utah, includes Juan Diego Catholic High School, a middle school, an elementary school, and a daycare on a shared campus. Other notable gifts from the ALSAM Foundation include $100 million for the creation of The Skaggs Center for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute—one of the largest gifts ever made to medical research. Skaggs Community Health Center in Branson, Missouri (now Cox Health Branson) was named after M.B. and Estella Skaggs. M.B. was a Missouri native who owned a home and game preserve in eastern Taney County. ==See also==