Driven David City boys started with post cards

From an early age, Rollie, William and Joyce Hall of David City, Neb., excelled at sales. Rollie and William managed a bookstore in Columbus while in their teens. Their youngest brother — who must have suffered with the name of Joyce — sold perfume door to door at age 9.

William Hall bought a bookstore in Norfolk, and the three budding entrepreneurs formed the Norfolk Post Card Co. around 1905, wholesaling cards far and wide and using William's bookstore as their headquarters. The business grew, and Joyce quit high school to join Rollie selling postcards on the road.

At 18, Joyce decided to move to a bigger city, attend a commercial college to hone his business skills, and started a mail-order card business. He originally planned on Omaha as his destination, but a traveling cigar salesman convinced him that the Kansas City area held the future for an energetic, forward-looking young man.

Darn that cigar salesman.

Joyce arrived in Kansas City in 1910 and moved into the YMCA. He stayed until the Y complained about the volume of mail he caused to come through its doors. So he rented an office for his mail-order postcard business, where Rollie joined him in 1911.

They began producing their own greeting cards as Hall Brothers and opened a retail store in 1916. Will sold his Norfolk holdings in 1921, and the three brothers once again were united in business.

The rest is history, as they say, and as you have probably guessed, it is the story of the greeting card industry's 800-pound gorilla, Hallmark Cards. Every day, the company produces millions of cards in dozens of languages for distribution in more than a hundred countries.

Hallmark has made quite a mark on Kansas City, developing its headquarters Crown Center complex, an office, retail and entertainment focal point near the city's center.

And to think that Omaha could have become the greeting card capital of the world.

« Living

Share