In 1889 Henry Stanhope Badcock sailed to New York City from a small town in England with 20 English sovereigns (a gold coin worth about $5 then) in his pocket.
"He came here at age 19 or 20. That's pretty adventurous right there," said Evelyn "Ebbie Sue" Blackmer, his great-granddaughter. "He wanted to come to a land of opportunity."
He quickly learned that opportunity wouldn't come in New York. According to Henry Badcock's own narrative, the "shabby and actually decaying (city) astonished me."
Within that first 24 hours, after seeing a police officer beat a drunken man nearly to death, Henry Badcock decided his fortunes lay elsewhere. On his second day in America, he bought a ticket for the "Seminole" train bound for Jacksonville.
Badcock struggled through those early years in his new country. He lost most of his original stake in a small grove destroyed by a winter freeze. He then found and lost jobs as a general store clerk and a streetcar conductor. He eventually landed in Fort Meade, working at another general store owned by English friends. When that also failed, he used $800 from the sale of his mother-in-law's home in Alabama to open the store in Mulberry, then a town growing rapidly because of phosphate mining.
Conveniently, that store stood next to a railroad track a block north of State Road 60, where the corporate headquarters stand today. Finally, opportunity knocked. Success answered.
The family company began a new adventure when Wogan Stanhope Badcock Sr. took over. Few people fit the mold of entrepreneur less than Wogan Badcock.
He adored children, in no small measure because they allowed him to express his own inner child. Blackmer recalls how her grandfather taught her to gargle with milk and encouraged her to do so at the dinner table when his grandmother looked away. Evelyn Badcock knew instantly who was responsible upon hearing the gurgling sound. “Wogan!" her grandmother chided.
Wogan Badcock III recalls his grandfather gave the children jobs in the company at an early age. "When I was about 5 or 6, he would give me a penny for every nail I found on the floor in the warehouse."
Blackmer also recalls "working" with her grandfather as young as age 5. She dusted his desk, did paperwork and, on one occasion in the Mulberry store, sold a woman an ice cream churn.
"Honey, you're about to make your first sale," he told his granddaughter.
He called her "honey" because he probably didn't remember her name, she says. Wogan Sr. was legendary for absent-mindedness in his personal affairs.
Stories abound:
He would show up at the barbershop in the afternoon to be informed he had his hair cut that morning, Wogan III says. "I wanted to tell you what a fine job you did," Wogan Sr. would tell his barber.
He would come to work wearing one brown and one black shoe, Blackmer says. He explained he dressed in the dark so as not to disturb Evelyn.
"But if you asked him how much the Plant City store made in 1973, he could tell you in 1979," Blackmer says. "He would remember when he had to and forget when he didn't have to. He would say the book is full."
Wogan Sr. not only pulled the business through the Great Depression, he expanded it to 46 stores across Florida by 1959.
Badcock survived the Depression by consigning furniture to "associates" who would sell door-to-door, often from horse-drawn wagons, in communities across Polk County, says Don Marks. The associates would extend credit ($1 down, $1 a day) even in those hard times. They collected payments weekly.
That system became the formula for the company's expansion, Marks says. The company buys merchandise and provides it to its dealers, who don't pay for it until the sale. The stores continue to offer financing -- even to customers other companies classify as credit risks.
Not until Wogan Badcock Jr. became president of the corporation in 1963 did Badcock embark on its next big adventure, expanding outside Florida.
It opened a store in Valdosta, Ga., in 1967. That happened in large measure after his father computerized Badcock's operations, Wogan Badcock III says. (He learned computers during a three-year stint in the Air Force from 1954-57.)
The fourth generation of Badcocks (Wogan III, Blackmer and eight others) won't shirk from taking on challenges.
The Badcocks still enjoy taking risks.
"My dad said we're going to have fun doing business," Wogan III says. "He said if you're not going to have fun, you better find something else. The worst death sentence you can have is to work in a business you don't like."
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The late Wogan Stanhope Badcock Jr. joined his father in the Tampa Bay Business Hall of Fame in February 2006.
Badcock, who served as president of his family's Mulberry-based furniture company for more than three decades, is credited with helping grow the chain from 63 to 364 stores across seven Southeastern states.
His father, Wogan Stanhope Badcock, was a 2000 inductee to the Hall of Fame. The program recognizes business leaders who have made major contributions to the Tampa Bay area, with nominations earned for business and community achievements.
Born in 1932, Badcock spent his childhood working for his father. He officially joined the family business in 1957 after graduating from the University of Florida and serving three years in the U.S. Air Force.
He became president of W.S. Badcock Corp. in 1963, and four years later, the chain opened its first store outside Florida in Valdosta, Ga. Badcock's 100th store followed in 1970 and the company reached $100 million in annual sales a decade later.
Badcock died in Mulberry on Nov. 20, 1996, three years after his company opened its 300th store.
Don Marks, who was hired as Badcock Corp.'s president in 1998, said Wogan Jr. was instrumental in growing the company and computerizing its operations. Marks also credited him with fostering a positive relationship between the business and its independent dealers.
"He was highly respected by all those dealers for having their best interest at heart, in addition to the company's," Marks said. "The guy was an amazing fella. I wish I had known him personally."
Badcock's other involvements included the Southern Scholarship Foundation, Kiwanis Club and the Boy Scouts of America. He also funded a Boys & Girls Club in Mulberry that bears his name.
