John Sephus Mack

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John Sephus Mack (March 9, 1880 – September 27, 1940), corporation president, was the son of a farmer and educated in the public schools of Indiana County, PA and at a business college in Johnstown. Mack began his career as a stock room clerk at McCrory Stores, Johnstown (owned by his cousin) and became general manager of the company in 1908. In 1911, he and Walter C. Shaw resigned from McCrory and purchased G.C. Murphy Co., McKeesport, PA, which owned about a dozen “five and dime” stores near Pittsburgh. Mack became president and chairman of the board in 1912, turned around the failing company and began expanding it rapidly. The Murphy Company continued to thrive during the Great Depression, and from 1929 to 1934, sales increased from $15.7 million to $28 million. By 1934, there were 181 Murphy Co. stores in eleven states and Washington, D.C. At one point, Murphy was the third-largest variety-store chain in the country.

Mack shortly became a philanthropist and community booster. He donated the Ralph Gibson McGill Library to Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He bought local homes in disrepair, fixed them, and rented them out. He set up a fund for the upkeep of the local cemetery and funded Brush Valley Maternity Hospital. He also stocked some of his own 1700 acres with deer and buffalo.

A Presbyterian, Mack first met Bob Jones, Sr., founder of Bob Jones College (now Bob Jones University) while serving on the organizing committee for a 1927 revival campaign in McKeesport. Mack was impressed with Jones and told him that he planned to put his “shoulder to the wheel and help you in a big way." Shortly before his death, Mack went so far as to tell Jones to "construct your buildings and send me the bill." Bob Jones College awarded Mack an honorary degree and named the library in his honor. A women’s residence hall in Greenville is also named for his wife.

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