Lowe's

The first Lowe's store, Mr. L.S. Lowe's North Wilkesboro Hardware, opened in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in 1921 by Lucius Smith Lowe. After Lowe died in 1940, the business was inherited by his daughter, Ruth Buchan, who sold the company to her brother, James Lowe, for $4,200, that same year. James took on his brother-in-law H. Carl Buchan, Ruth's husband, as a partner in 1943.

Buchan anticipated the dramatic increase in construction after World War II, and under his management, the store focused on hardware and building materials. Before then, the product mix had also included notions, dry goods, horse tack, snuff, produce, and groceries. Buchan and Lowe started the concept of procuring large quantities of products directly from manufacturers, which eliminated the wholesaler and allowed them to offer customers lower prices. The company opened its second store in Sparta, North Carolina, in 1949.

In 1952, Buchan became the sole owner of Lowe's, and the company was incorporated as Lowe's North Wilkesboro Hardware. In 1954, Jim Lowe started the Lowes Foods grocery store chain.

In 1960, Buchan died of a heart attack at age 44. His five-man executive team, which included Robert Strickland and Leonard Herring, took the company public in 1961 under the name Lowe's Companies Inc. By 1962, Lowe's operated 21 stores and reported annual revenues of $32 million. Lowe's began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1979. By 1970s, Lowe's revenue reached more than $150 million and, in 1980, to nearly $900 million.

Under the leadership of Robert L. Tillman, who was CEO from 1996 to 2005, Lowe's expanded beyond its traditional Southern base into the Northeast, Midwest, and West, and completed the acquisition of Eagle Hardware & Garden to accelerate growth in the western United States. Lowe's grew nationally, as it was aided by the purchase of the Renton, Washington–based Eagle Hardware & Garden company in 1999. The first store outside the United States was in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. According to its website, Lowe's has operated/serviced more than 2,355 locations in the United States, Canada, and Mexico alone, although the Mexican stores were closed in the late 2010s.

Lowe's formerly operated in Mexico with 14 locations: 8 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, 1 in Saltillo, Coahuila, 1 in Hermosillo, Sonora, 1 in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, 1 in Culiacán, Sinaloa, 1 in Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes and 1 in León, Guanajuato. Lowe's Mexico closed all its stores on April 10, 2019.

In 2023, Lowe's sold its Canadian retail business, based in Boucherville, Quebec, to Sycamore Partners for $400 million in cash. They will all be consolidated into Rona stores.

Lowe's agreed to acquire Foundation Building Materials for $8.8 billion in cash in August 2025, purchasing the home improvement supplier with the intention of expanding into the business that serves contractors and builders.

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All-American Muslim advertising controversy

Lowe's withdrew its advertising from the TLC reality television show All-American Muslim in December 2011. A spokesperson for Lowe's said, "we understand the program raised concerns, complaints, or issues from multiple sides of the viewer spectrum, which we found after doing research of news articles and blogs covering the show".

Lowe's faced a backlash from several quarters, including Muslim-American and Arab-American organizations. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called upon members to contact Lowe's to urge it to reverse its position. The Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations met to consider possible actions, including boycotts and protests. Several celebrities also called for a boycott. California State Senator Ted Lieu called Lowe's decision "naked religious bigotry" and said he would consider legislative action if Lowe's did not apologize to Muslim Americans and reinstate the ads. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League expressed similar views. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, criticized Lowe's decision to "uphold the beliefs of a fringe hate group and not the creed of the First Amendment". Representative John Conyers of Michigan called on Lowe's to apologize. Michigan state representative Rashida Tlaib contacted the company's corporate headquarters, reporting that Lowe's declined to change its decision.

Lawsuits

Lowe's was involved in a small cluster of class action lawsuits that revolved around the employee payment system. The cases focused on a pay practice known as "variable rate overtime". Variable-rate overtime has the effect of paying a decreasing overtime rate the more hours a person works in a week. The suits alleged that salaried managers who worked 40 to 50 hours per week were improperly compensated for that time. The variable rate overtime ended in the first quarter of 2006.

The first case was filed in October 2002 by employees of the Lowe's store in Shawnee, Kansas. In September 2005, the cases were certified as a class action. Four similar briefs were filed in New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The lawsuits for New York, Indiana, and Kansas resulted in an out-of-court settlement on September 22, 2006. The lawsuit in Pennsylvania became a class-action lawsuit in June 2004, with 550 employees. The case in Ohio was filed by ten former Lowe's employees in August 2004.

Lowe's faced multiple lawsuits from its Loss Prevention Managers citing that they were classified as exempt employees and therefore denied overtime pay. The managers asserted that they were forced to work a minimum of 48 hours per week which saved Lowe's and its investors millions of dollars every year. Lawsuits have been settled for $2.95 million in California and $6.2 million in Texas.

In 2014, Lowe's faced a class-action lawsuit from former and current Human Resource Managers. Similarly to the lawsuit regarding its Loss Prevention Managers, the lawsuit stated that the HR Managers were improperly, and illegally, classified as exempt employees and were, therefore, denied overtime even though they were required to work 48-hour weeks.