The History of Morgan Imports
By Richard Morgan
By Richard Morgan
In 1965 I was a life insurance agent for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company in Durham, N.C. I was also in the active Marine Corps reserve. The Northwestern Mutual is a great life insurance company but an insurance agent I was not. I needed to make a change in my life so I volunteered to go back in the Marine Corps in October 1965. I ended up in Vietnam and served 13 months in Vietnam from April 1967 to May 1968.
I was an aerial observer flying air control, reconnaissance and ground support missions in northern South Vietnam and southern North Vietnam in an L-19 , a single engine aircraft (a souped-up Cessna 180 with a tricycle landing gear) for six months . I flew 180 combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in action. For seven months I was officer in charge of the Chieu Hoi (pronounced Chew Hoi) program for the 3rd Marine Division. The Chieu Hoi ( which means Open Arms) program was set up to offer amnesty to Viet Cong guerrillas and to retrain a select few of the Hoi Chanhs (all returnees were called Hoi Chanhs, pronounced Hoy Chun) to operate as scouts for Marine ground units.
We Marines called them KIT Carson Scouts. My responsibility was to set up and run the school for the Scouts and to support and find a place for the Scout’s family to live in the villages. I experienced a different side of the war and enjoyed working with the Vietnamese people. I was awarded a Navy Commendation for meritorious service.
Now what does all this have to do with Morgan Imports? Here is the connection. There were two US Marine lieutenants on my staff who had been to Vietnamese language school. One of the lieutenants’ wives had somehow managed to get herself to Okinawa and was in charge of the PX (Post Exchange) in Naha, a Marine base in Okinawa. As manager of the gift shop, she had established many contacts in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Bangkok from which she purchased merchandise for the gift shop. She and her Marine husband were planning to open a gift shop in the US after they returned to the US.
I began to think about the possibility myself and as luck would have it, I was sent to Okinawa for 5 days. I contacted the Marine wife and she graciously gave me the names and address of all her contact suppliers.
When I returned home from VN I was assigned to COMPHIBGROUP IV as an intelligence officer on an Admiral’s staff. I decided to pursue the idea of starting an import business and requested permission from the Marine Corps to travel overseas on leave in 1968. The MC gave me permission to travel overseas on leave during 1968 (the VN war was still hot and heavy) but prohibited my travel on military aircraft . I thought I had hit my first roadblock. If I could not travel on military aircraft which had frequent flights from the US to Asia and frequent trips to all Asian cities, then I could not afford to make the trip to Asia. As luck would have it again, I was good friends with the Chief NCO for the Admiral. As anyone who has served in the Navy and Marine Corps knows, a good Chief NCO can do anything. The Chief told me not to worry about the MC order; he would reference the MC order and rewrite the travel order originating from the Admiral’s Office. With my new rewritten orders in hand I travelled priority on military flights from the US to Japan and from Japan to HK, Bangkok and Taiwan. I made the business contacts which was the first step to starting Morgan Imports.
I resigned from the Marine Corps in June 1969, returned to Durham, NC and opened Morgan Imports on November 12, 1969. We named the store Morgan Imports because my original idea was to be a big import store like Pier 1 but I soon realized that I did not have the capital to import enough merchandise to be like Pier1. Our first store was about 20 % imports from the contacts that I made on my Asian trip in 1968 and the remainder of the merchandise was purchased domestically at the Atlanta, New York and California gift shows.
The first store was located in an old Piggly Wiggly store located at the intersection of Main and Morgan Streets in downtown Durham. Everyone thought I was crazy to open a store in Downtown Durham.
In July 1972 we moved the store one block east to a 10,000 square foot building we purchased, the old Stephenson Wilson Pontiac dealership located at 908 West Main Street. The store burned on October 20, 1979 on a Saturday afternoon while I was attending a Duke Football game. My sister Carol and my brother-in-law Charlie were in charge of the store at the time and Carol had me paged at the game. I left the game and when I turned on to Main Street from Duke’s East Campus , I saw the smoke rising from the store and realized that my life was about to change.
From 1979 to 1982 we operated a small store in Chapel Hill, NC, in a small center called the Courtyard, while we waited for the economy to recover from the 21% interest rates during 1978 and 1979.
In 1981 we opened a 16,000 square store in Brightleaf Square, directly across the street from the old Morgan Imports burned location on Main Street. During 1983 to 1989 we opened a MI store in Northgate Mall in Durham, NC, Rocky Mount, NC, Cary, NC and Christmas stores in Raleigh and Durham, NC. We closed all the stores except the BL store by 1989 to concentrate on the new store that we opened on October 4, 1991. The old Durham Laundry building at 113 S. Gregson Street became the new 25,000 square foot Morgan Imports. The DLB was built in 1927 and until the mid 1980’s served the Durham community with pickup and delivery laundry service. DLB also did all of Duke University‘s laundry.
We totally renovated the building from April 1991 to October 1991. We reused all the pipes from the two large boilers that served the laundry to create the railings on the porch on Peabody Street and we incorporated into the design of the store great sky lights and other architectural features of the laundry.
We are very proud of the store. It is a store like no other with its clear stories, 20 foot ceilings, great merchandise from all over the world and great people to serve you.
I was an aerial observer flying air control, reconnaissance and ground support missions in northern South Vietnam and southern North Vietnam in an L-19 , a single engine aircraft (a souped-up Cessna 180 with a tricycle landing gear) for six months . I flew 180 combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in action. For seven months I was officer in charge of the Chieu Hoi (pronounced Chew Hoi) program for the 3rd Marine Division. The Chieu Hoi ( which means Open Arms) program was set up to offer amnesty to Viet Cong guerrillas and to retrain a select few of the Hoi Chanhs (all returnees were called Hoi Chanhs, pronounced Hoy Chun) to operate as scouts for Marine ground units.
We Marines called them KIT Carson Scouts. My responsibility was to set up and run the school for the Scouts and to support and find a place for the Scout’s family to live in the villages. I experienced a different side of the war and enjoyed working with the Vietnamese people. I was awarded a Navy Commendation for meritorious service.
Now what does all this have to do with Morgan Imports? Here is the connection. There were two US Marine lieutenants on my staff who had been to Vietnamese language school. One of the lieutenants’ wives had somehow managed to get herself to Okinawa and was in charge of the PX (Post Exchange) in Naha, a Marine base in Okinawa. As manager of the gift shop, she had established many contacts in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Bangkok from which she purchased merchandise for the gift shop. She and her Marine husband were planning to open a gift shop in the US after they returned to the US.
I began to think about the possibility myself and as luck would have it, I was sent to Okinawa for 5 days. I contacted the Marine wife and she graciously gave me the names and address of all her contact suppliers.
When I returned home from VN I was assigned to COMPHIBGROUP IV as an intelligence officer on an Admiral’s staff. I decided to pursue the idea of starting an import business and requested permission from the Marine Corps to travel overseas on leave in 1968. The MC gave me permission to travel overseas on leave during 1968 (the VN war was still hot and heavy) but prohibited my travel on military aircraft . I thought I had hit my first roadblock. If I could not travel on military aircraft which had frequent flights from the US to Asia and frequent trips to all Asian cities, then I could not afford to make the trip to Asia. As luck would have it again, I was good friends with the Chief NCO for the Admiral. As anyone who has served in the Navy and Marine Corps knows, a good Chief NCO can do anything. The Chief told me not to worry about the MC order; he would reference the MC order and rewrite the travel order originating from the Admiral’s Office. With my new rewritten orders in hand I travelled priority on military flights from the US to Japan and from Japan to HK, Bangkok and Taiwan. I made the business contacts which was the first step to starting Morgan Imports.
I resigned from the Marine Corps in June 1969, returned to Durham, NC and opened Morgan Imports on November 12, 1969. We named the store Morgan Imports because my original idea was to be a big import store like Pier 1 but I soon realized that I did not have the capital to import enough merchandise to be like Pier1. Our first store was about 20 % imports from the contacts that I made on my Asian trip in 1968 and the remainder of the merchandise was purchased domestically at the Atlanta, New York and California gift shows.
The first store was located in an old Piggly Wiggly store located at the intersection of Main and Morgan Streets in downtown Durham. Everyone thought I was crazy to open a store in Downtown Durham.
In July 1972 we moved the store one block east to a 10,000 square foot building we purchased, the old Stephenson Wilson Pontiac dealership located at 908 West Main Street. The store burned on October 20, 1979 on a Saturday afternoon while I was attending a Duke Football game. My sister Carol and my brother-in-law Charlie were in charge of the store at the time and Carol had me paged at the game. I left the game and when I turned on to Main Street from Duke’s East Campus , I saw the smoke rising from the store and realized that my life was about to change.
From 1979 to 1982 we operated a small store in Chapel Hill, NC, in a small center called the Courtyard, while we waited for the economy to recover from the 21% interest rates during 1978 and 1979.
In 1981 we opened a 16,000 square store in Brightleaf Square, directly across the street from the old Morgan Imports burned location on Main Street. During 1983 to 1989 we opened a MI store in Northgate Mall in Durham, NC, Rocky Mount, NC, Cary, NC and Christmas stores in Raleigh and Durham, NC. We closed all the stores except the BL store by 1989 to concentrate on the new store that we opened on October 4, 1991. The old Durham Laundry building at 113 S. Gregson Street became the new 25,000 square foot Morgan Imports. The DLB was built in 1927 and until the mid 1980’s served the Durham community with pickup and delivery laundry service. DLB also did all of Duke University‘s laundry.
We totally renovated the building from April 1991 to October 1991. We reused all the pipes from the two large boilers that served the laundry to create the railings on the porch on Peabody Street and we incorporated into the design of the store great sky lights and other architectural features of the laundry.
We are very proud of the store. It is a store like no other with its clear stories, 20 foot ceilings, great merchandise from all over the world and great people to serve you.
