This cache, placed in the small town of Hamilton, Missouri, honors Hamilton’s favorite son, retailer and entrepreneur James Cash (J.C.) Penney.
THE HISTORY
Mr. Penney, the seventh of twelve children, was born and raised in Hamilton, graduating in 1893 from Hamilton High School. Many twists and turns occurred in Mr. Penney’s life story on the way to establishing a giant retail corporation with well over 1000 stores worldwide. One of the most interesting episodes happened in Des Moines, IA in 1940. Despite being J.C. Penney Corp’s chairman of the board and one of America’s corporate giants at the time, Mr. Penney still liked to stay hands-on, and visit his stores. The Des Moines store had recently employed a young man who, like Mr. Penney, was a fellow Missourian and was fresh out of college, graduating from University of Missouri, Columbia. Mr. Penney took the time to show the young man how to properly tie a ribbon on a package to decorate a customer’s purchase while efficiently using a minimum amount of ribbon. The young man, it turns out, was Sam Walton, who went on to establish Wal-Mart.
Many other stories of Mr. Penney’s life can be found at the following links. Please take the time to read a bit about this great man’s life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cash_Penney
http://shs.umsystem.edu/famousmissourians/entrepreneurs/penney/
http://www.academyofachievement.org/honorees/jc_penney.htm
http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/all/cul/dyn/
http://kemmerer.org/jcpenney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Penney
http://www.familycar.com/Classics/47Cadillac/
THE CACHE
To properly honor Mr. Penney, this cache will take you to several places around Hamilton that are Penney-meaningful. The first gives you the big picture. From this location, you will learn to go to N39 AB.CDE, W93 FG.HIJ based on:
- A = number of Cs
- B = number of Ys
- C = number of Ks
- D = number of Ms
- E = number of Bs & Rs
- F = number of Ys
- G = number of Ts
- H = number of Fs & Ps
- I = number of Vs
- J = number of Gs
At the second location, you will find a sign denoting a location that was renamed in Mr. Penney’s honor. On this sign you will find two brick columns of seven 4-digit numbers each. Let’s denote the left column A-G and the right column H-N. There are other numbers here that are not on the brick columns, but you can ignore them. Use these numbers to go to N 39 QR.STU, W93 VW.XYZ, where:
- Q=H4 V=C4
- R=H4 W=A2
- S=C4 X=N4
- T=B3 Y=H4
- U=G4 Z=only digit not in A-N
The third location is a building that has served two functions in its life that were very meaningful to Mr. Penney’s life. Its first purpose is obvious from the capstone at the top of the building. Its second purpose was home to the Masonic Lodge where Mr. Penney was a member. To find your next landmark, go in the easterly direction "pointed" to by the number of letters in the longest word on the nearby dial. Go a distance in feet equal to the old Masonic Lodge number.
The fourth location is near a place important to Mr. Penney’s upbringing. You should visit it while you are here. But at the new location, you will find a lot of info from which you can divine the next stop in your journey. Doing so will be difficult if there has been recent snowfall. Here you go:
- Y32-2-5, F38-3-10, A10-2-1, E4-3-5, Q4-3-8, X13-3-4, K42-2-8, L3-2-9
- B31-2-1, W7-3-2, N4-2-7, J10-3-4, R8-2-9, Z21-3-7, G8-3-6, U15-3-7, V16-3-3
- C23-1-2, S32-1-5, H13-3-1, O13-1-5, I1-2-7, P18-1-4, T46-2-9, D29-2-6, M8-4-3
The fifth and final location, another place well worth a visit, is where you will find the cache, and if you have sharp eyes you notice another hidden plaque mentioning Mr. Penney.
Enjoy your exploration of Hamilton, MO. And while you do, see if you can figure out where there was once a J.C. Penney store in Hamilton – that building still stands.