The Zale Legacy

Before the jewelry stores there was a boy born in 1901 in Shereshov, Russia, whose family left in 1908 to escape poverty and pogroms. They settled in Fort Worth in 1910, and he left school after the seventh grade. His uncle Sam Kruger taught him the jewelry trade, and in 1920 he managed Kruger's store in Burkburnett. Zale later opened a buying office in Antwerp, a first for a retail jeweler, and paid off a Depression debt over five years. In 1947 he financed an orphanage in Europe for young war victims.

What the plaque says

The Zale Legacy In the early 20th century, the Wichita Falls oil boom attracted several immigrant Russian Jewish families seeking a better life. One such immigrant to the town, Morris Bernard Zalefsky (1901-1995), began to learn the jewelry trade from his uncle, Sam Kruger. Zalefsky opened his own store inside a drug store in Graham, but due to Ku Klux Klan activity in the area, he returned to Wichita falls in 1924. Zalefsky Americanized his name to Zale, opened his own store at this location on March 29, 1924, and created the Zale Jewelry Company with his family. Opening stores in nearby states, Zale expanded inventory, offered easy credit, employee stock options, sales training and used aggressive advertising. The company acquired a variety of businesses including other jewelry stores nationwide. Zale Jewelry Company survived the Great Depression and became even larger after World War II. In 1946, Zale moved his headquarters to Dallas. In 1951, he and his family established the Zale Foundation, providing scholarships and social service grants to minorities and the less fortunate. By 1958, the company changed its name to Zale Corporation, was listed on the stock exchange and became the world's largest retail jeweler. In honor of Morris and his wife, Edna Lipshy Zale, the family continues to support the community and people of Wichita Falls. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World's Littlest Skyscraper — steps away
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Kell House Museum — 0.6 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• O'Donohoe, John F. — steps away
• Site of St. James Hotel — steps away
• Wichita Falls Opera House — steps away
• Wichita Falls Bank Robbery of 1896 — steps away