Just fifty years ago, there came into this great new and undeveloped Western plains county a young man filled with ambition and fired with, to use a trite phrase, the intestinal fortitude to meet his adversaries on their own battlefields.  He came to see and to conquer and he has done just that.  He has carved for himself, with the most primitive tools, a monument that will ever stand out depicting him as one of the brave and hardy pioneers who had the courage of his convictions.  Equipped with only the armor of a young man with a level head, unwavering faith and a brave heart, he entered his field of conquest, he planted in this raw undeveloped land, a seed, from which has grown a veritable forest.  This forest comprises the many substantial wholesale grocery houses of the Radford Grocery Company, and this young man was J. M. Radford.

    Mr. Radford launched upon his career in Abilene which, at that time was a wild and wooly cow-town, and then as the ranchmen and cowboys and western influence pushed further West, Abilene fast became known as a stock farming country, and the men with hoes and plows took the place of cowboys and sheep herders.  Upon the same ground where his first effort was put forth in this line, today stands a monument in the nature of the vast home office of the J. M. Radford Grocery Company.

    From this modest little unpretentious grocery store has sprung a large organization which consists of approximately thirty branches, covering this vast Northwest trade territory of Texas.  Three are located in New Mexico and on in Oklahoma.  From the little grocery business established in Abilene in 1883, has sprung these many whole-sale houses of the J. M. Radford Company which today furnishes employment to more than four hundred people.  The original little retail grocery on a small lot of ground, compared with the portentous structure that occupies that same location today but with much added ground is typical of the changes that have taken place in Abilene and the surrounding country since Mr. J. M. Radford saw fit to tackle the wide, open spaces.

    Among the vast army of the Radford Grocery Company employees are many men who have been with him for twenty years and more.  The Radford employees that, through their close association have become almost like one large family.  Mr. Radford affectionately refers to as his boys.

    As much as this institution has grown and prospered, it is not too large to be ever mindful of the good people of this great section of the country who have made that success and expansion possible.