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

Events

Birth8 May 1878Stanly County, NC
Marriage14 Dec 1896McKinney, Collin County, TX - Annie Ida FURR
Occupation1900Farmer - Collin County, TX
Occupation1910General Store Merchant - Childress County, TX
Occupation1920Manager, Grocery and Dry Goods - Childress County, TX
Death30 Oct 1946Amarillo, Potter County, TX
BurialLlano Cemetery, Amarillo, Randall County, TX

Families

SpouseAnnie Ida FURR (1878 - 1968)
ChildLeona FURR (1898 - 1996)
ChildKey FURR (1901 - 1982)
ChildRoy Kenneth FURR (1904 - 1975)
FatherJohn Allen FURR (1853 - 1936)
MotherMartha Ann "Mattie" GREENE (1857 - 1908)
SiblingColumbus Nelson FURR (1873 - 1960)
SiblingElizabeth Laura "Lizzie" FURR (1875 - 1902)
SiblingWalter Washington FURR (1880 - 1933)
SiblingCora Ellen FURR (1882 - 1959)
SiblingJennie FURR (1884 - 1914)
SiblingLonnie L. FURR (1886 - 1903)
SiblingClaude FURR (1892 - 1941)
SiblingRalph FURR (1896 - 1918)
SiblingWade Hampton FURR (1897 - 1968)
SiblingPearl Ethel FURR (1899 - 1997)

Endnotes