Back in the olden days, around 1927, few people had that new fangled appliance called a refrigerator (first introduced in 1913). Instead, most people had something called an ice box.  Usually this was an insulated wooden box with a compartment on top where you would place a block of ice. As the ice melted the cold water dripped down and kept a bottom compartment fairly cool. And in the hot Texas summers, it took a lot of blocks of ice to keep the milk and eggs fresh.

            The place to get your blocks of ice (unless it was delivered to your door) was called an Ice House. Most communities had ice houses and Dallas was no exception. One particular ice house sat on the corner of Edgefield and Twelfth Street in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas and was named Johnny Green’s Ice House.

            John Jefferson Green, the man who owned this particular ice house, had an idea about how he could make more money. Instead of just selling ice, “Uncle Johnny” reasoned that he might collect a little more pocket change if he sold a few other things. At that time a block of ice sold for a whopping 11 cents. It made sense to him to begin stocking a few grocery items. Remember (if you’re that old) that at this time there were no supermarkets. Groceries were purchased at small neighborhood “Mom-and-Pop” stores, and these stores often closed early in the evening and on weekends. What if Cousin Sally had a birthday party coming up and you needed to make your special triple-layer butter cake that night and were out of milk and eggs? Sorry. No can do. That’s where Uncle Johnny’s idea caught on. He stayed open late – a full sixteen hours a day, and on weekends.  People soon learned that even after the Mom-and-Pop’s were closed you could still get a few groceries at the ice house on Edgefield.  Johnny sold quarts of milk for 7 cents, a pound of cheese for 24 cents and a loaf of bread for 9 cents each. His customers literally ate it up – they loved being able to pick up a few necessities after hours. It made their life a little more convenient.

            It wasn’t long before the Southland Ice Company realized that Johnny had a good idea. They bought the idea and opened similar stores all over town. The expanded ice houses were called Tote’m stores since customers ‘toted’ their purchases home. Some stores featured an Indian Totem pole out front to keep with the theme. Although the ice house part of the business became less and less of a necessity as refrigerators become more abundant, the convenience part grew even more popular.

            Since the stores were open from 7 in the morning to 11 at night (a long time to be opened for any business during those years), in 1946 an advertiser got the bright idea of using that information as the store’s name. Thus, the stores were renamed 7-Eleven.

            Not only was Johnny’s idea good, it started a huge trend in retailing. Today, there are convenience stores on street corners, at gas stations, in airports and almost everywhere else people gather or live. If each and every one of them drew up their family tree then the little ice house on the corner of Edgefield and Twelfth Street Dallas would be listed as each and every one’s great-grandpa.

           A great store can’t stay in business with just one great idea, so 7-Eleven came up with a few other “firsts” over the years. It was the first convenience store to operate its store 24 hours a day, first to sell fresh-brewed coffee in to-go cups, first to have a self-serve soda fountain and (oh joy!) first to offer monster-sized drinks (which they called the Big Gulp). It was also the first convenience store to advertise on television (in 1949), first to sell pre-paid phone cards, and the first to have a genuinely cool advertising slogan, “Oh, Thank Heaven for Seven-Eleven.”

            That original 7-Eleven store (although rebuilt a few times) remained at the original location in Dallas until 1995. Because the space was small and there was no place to add gasoline pumps, it was finally closed. (The 7-Eleven building still exists but now serves as an office for the League of Latin American Citizens.)

            Today 7-Eleven stores exist all over the world, including stores in Japan, Australia, Mexico, Taiwan, Canada and Europe. In fact, 7-Eleven, Inc. is the world's largest operator, franchiser and licenser of convenience stores with more than 27,000 units worldwide. The company name was officially changed to 7-Eleven, Inc from The Southland Corporation in 1999. Its offices are in Dallas just north of downtown on Central Expressway. The next time you get a brain freeze (an officially registered 7-Eleven owned phrase) sucking down one of the 11.6 million Slurpees (a registered trademark) sold every month; you have Uncle Johnny to thank.

(c)Copyright Alan C. Elliott, 2006

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