Individual Details
Crone Webster FURR
(8 May 1878 - 30 Oct 1946)
FURR, CRONE WEBSTER (1878-1946). Crone Webster Furr, food merchant, the son of John Allan and Martha Ann Furr, was born on May 8, 1878, in Stanly County, North Carolina. He attended a country school near his birthplace. The family moved to Texas in 1894, and young Furr began farming near McKinney. He soon added a small crossroads grocery store near his farm and then in 1904 moved to Kirkland, where he established the Kirkland Mercantile Company. Four years later he organized the First State Bank of Kirkland with an initial capital of $10,000. Furr bought the M System grocery franchise in the Amarillo area in 1924 and sold his Kirkland businesses in 1927 in order to concentrate on his grocery business. A year later he acquired the franchise for Piggly Wiggly stores in Amarillo. In 1934 he began to change the name of the Amarillo branch stores from Piggly Wiggly to Furr Food Stores. By 1946 his family-run enterprises included forty-three supermarkets in an area from Denver, Colorado, to El Paso, Texas; a creamery, bakery, packing plant, and warehouse in Lubbock; and a packing plant in Amarillo.
Furr was for many years a deacon of the Polk Street Methodist Church in Amarillo. He was a member of the Lions Club and contributed to Clarendon and McMurry colleges and other institutions. He married Annie Furr (no relation) on December 14, 1896. They had one daughter and two sons. Furr died on October 30, 1946, in Amarillo and is buried there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Amarillo Daily News, October 31, 1946. Seymour V. Connor, ed., Builders of the Southwest (Lubbock: Southwest Collection, Texas Technological College, 1959).
Lawrence L. Graves
Furr was for many years a deacon of the Polk Street Methodist Church in Amarillo. He was a member of the Lions Club and contributed to Clarendon and McMurry colleges and other institutions. He married Annie Furr (no relation) on December 14, 1896. They had one daughter and two sons. Furr died on October 30, 1946, in Amarillo and is buried there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Amarillo Daily News, October 31, 1946. Seymour V. Connor, ed., Builders of the Southwest (Lubbock: Southwest Collection, Texas Technological College, 1959).
Lawrence L. Graves
Events
| Birth | 8 May 1878 | Stanly County, NC |  | ||
| Marriage | 14 Dec 1896 | McKinney, Collin County, TX - Annie Ida FURR | | ||
| Occupation | 1900 | farmer - Collin County, TX | |||
| Occupation | 1910 | general store merchant - Childress County, TX | |||
| Occupation | 1920 | manager, grocery and dry goods - Childress County, TX | |||
| Death | 30 Oct 1946 | Amarillo, Potter County, TX |  | | |
| Burial | Llano Cemetery, Amarillo, Randall County, TX | |
Families
| Spouse | Annie Ida FURR (1878 - 1968) |
| Child | Leona FURR (1898 - 1996) |
| Child | Key FURR (1901 - 1982) |
| Child | Roy Kenneth FURR (1904 - 1975) |
| Father | John Allen FURR (1853 - 1936) |
| Mother | Martha Ann "Mattie" GREENE (1857 - 1908) |
| Sibling | Columbus Nelson FURR (1873 - 1960) |
| Sibling | Elizabeth Laura "Lizzie" FURR (1875 - 1902) |
| Sibling | Walter Washington FURR (1880 - 1933) |
| Sibling | Cora Ellen FURR (1882 - 1959) |
| Sibling | Jennie FURR (1884 - 1914) |
| Sibling | Lonnie L. FURR (1886 - 1903) |
| Sibling | Claude FURR (1892 - 1941) |
| Sibling | Ralph FURR (1896 - 1918) |
| Sibling | Wade Hampton FURR (1897 - 1968) |
| Sibling | Pearl Ethel FURR (1899 - 1997) |
Notes
Death
Funeral services for C.W. Furr, pioneer Panhandle groceryman and president of Furr Food stores in the Panhandle, will be conducted from the Polk Street Methodist church in Amarillo tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock. The Pampa store management announced today that the store would be closed all day tomorrow for the rites. Mr. Furr who was 68 years of age, died yesterday evening at Northwest Texas hospital in Amarillo following a short illness. He established his first store at Kirkland in 1907 and later expanded, operating a chain of stores known as the M-System. The name of the firm was changed to Furr Food in 1933 and stores were opened in several Panhandle cites, including Pampa. The firm operates eight super markets in Amarillo. Besides his wife, he is survived by a daughter and two sons of the immediate family. One son, Key, is vice president of the firm and another, Roy, is manager of the Lubbock stores. Crone Webster Furr was born in Albemarle, Stanley (sic) county, N. C., May 8, 1878, the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Furr. He was 14 years old when his parents moved to Texas, settling at McKinney. He was reared on a farm in Collin county. He gained his common school education in the public schools of North Carolina and Texas. He was married in 1896 to Miss Annie Furr, a young woman of no relation to him but who, by coincidence, was born in Carabarus (sic) county, N.C. and moved to Texas with her family four years before Mr. Furr's parents. Mr. and Mrs. Furr moved from McKinney to Kirkland in 1907, and there fulfilled his life-long ambition to go into business for himself. He established the Kirkland Mercantile company in a 20 by 30-foot frame building, the rear of which was used as his home for almost a year. Mr. Furr addled to his business as the country around Kirkland was developed, erecting several brick buildings and organizing several business firms, including furniture, dry goods and groceries. He was one of the organizers of the Kirkland State bank and later served as its president. In 1925, Mr. Furr took the steps which led him into the grocery business in a big way, purchasing the M-System rights in several Northwest Texas counties, and opening his first Amarillo store at 512 Polk street.Pampa Daily News, Pampa, Texas, October 31, 1946
Endnotes
1. United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007, database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KSP-S62F : 10 February 2023).
2. Texas County Marriage Records, 1837-1965. Database with images. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org : 18 November 2020.
3. "Texas Deaths, 1890-1976." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 28 November 2020.
4. , findagrave.com (N.p.: n.p., n.d.).