Publix, the retail grocery chain with more than 1,300 stores across the Southeastern U.S., is the largest employee-owned company in the country.
And though founder George W. Jenkins grew up in Harris, Georgia, that's not where he opened his first store. Publix actually got its start in South Florida.
At 17 years old, Jenkins wanted to see if he could find financial success in Florida during its real estate boom. That didn't work out for him, and he found work as a stocking clerk for a Piggly Wiggly grocery in Tampa. Eventually, he was promoted to manager and was soon transferred to the chain's largest store in Winter Haven.
Despite the Great Depression having set in, Jenkins took a risk and resigned from Piggly Wiggly. Just a few weeks shy of his 23 rd birthday, on September 6, 1930, Jenkins opened Publix Food Store in Winter Haven. Five years later, he opened a second store across town.
How Publix survived the Great Depression in Florida Launching a business following the 1929 stock market crash that led to the Great Depression may have seemed a fool's errand. But Floridians were already dealing with economic hardship. In 1926, with the public's trust in "paper" millionaires waning, the real estate boom went bust.
Two major hurricanes hit Florida in 1926 and 1928, the economic impact of which "has never been exceeded," Coastal Breeze News reported. A fruit-fly infestation in 1929 damaged citrus groves, one of the state's main cash crops, causing further devastation. But even.
