William Thomas Dillard, was the founder of the Dillard's Department Store chain.

William T. Dillard was born on 2 September 1914 in Mineral Springs

Mineral Springs, Arkansas

Mineral Springs is a city in Howard County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 1,264 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Mineral Springs is located at ....

, Howard County

Howard County, Arkansas

Howard County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of 2010, the population was 13,789. The county seat is Nashville. Howard County is Arkansas's 74th county, formed on April 17, 1873, and named for James Howard, a state senator...

, Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

. His parents Thomas and Hattie ran a country store. Dillard found employment with Sears & Roebuck Company where he gained experience in retail business. Dillard graduated from the University of Arkansas

University of Arkansas

The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...

 with a degree in Business Administration and earned a Master's Degree from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Dillard returned to Arkansas and opened his first retail store in 1938 in the town of Nashville, Arkansas

Nashville, Arkansas

Nashville is a city in Howard County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 4,878 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Howard County....

. By the turn of the century, Dillard's Department Stores was the third largest department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

chain in the United States.

Dillard died at his home in Little Rock.