The pastor at Powell's Nazarene church suggested that he could earn an extra $50 by buying army surplus items, specifically refrigeration machines, and then selling them for a profit.
[attribution needed] Powell took the $500 loan and $500 of his own money, purchased $1000 worth of sleeping bags, and sold them for about $11,000.
He and his brother-in-law and future business partner, Dallas E. Ortman, went to Texas and purchased a North American T-6 Texan trainer.
Powell flew around the country purchasing more army surplus goods, then opened a makeshift store from a 150-foot-long (46 m) tent across the street from the Boeing Company aircraft plant in Seattle.
Lillian Titel, a merchant for Bloomingdale's, was hired to do the company's buying, and Wigwam began selling items other than army surplus.
[citation needed] Powell and his partners followed the advice of employee Marvin Shelby and expanded to Hawaii where Wigwam would have few competitors.
Wigwam advertised on every medium possible; they ran television and radio commercials, and placed ads and coupons in newspapers and magazines.
On one occasion, they hired a local radio disk jockey to break the world record for broadcasting continuously for two weeks from one of the Honolulu stores.
After Wigwam moved to the Southwest, the company needed capital to continue the expansion, so it made an initial public offering in the stock market in 1970.
Many of the major investors and one of the original partners, Adler, wanted Wigwam and its sister department stores to open all seven days of the week, including Sunday.
There were no injuries, but the store and its contents were completely destroyed and the loss cost the company millions of dollars.