photo courtesy of the Amarillo Public Library Archive

Furr Food Store

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While the name is synonymous for buffet dining today, the Furr family business began as a chain of grocery stores. After establishing a small monopoly of stores in Kirkland, Texas, in the early 1900s, Crone Webster Furr took over the M System franchise in Amarillo in 1924. Four years later, he acquired the area Piggly Wiggly stores and combined the two smaller companies to form one – Furr Food Stores. By 1948, the company was expanded and renamed Furrs Incorporated. With his sons, Key and Roy, and his son-in-law, J.L. Sparks, the Furr family operated grocery stores in more than 30 cities from Fort Worth to Denver for three decades, eventually owning a chain of 130 supermarkets, drug stores and cafeterias.