On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 08:34:57 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 11/24/2012 3:01 PM, micky wrote:
...


Anyone remember? Where were you in the 50's?

In _early_ 50s, I was just beginning grade school (in town because
mother insisted we go there instead of the one-room school where were
intended to go up at Brown's corner a mile-and-a-half away).

Two nights ago, I was listing to Sunday night old time radio, to an
episode of Father Knows Best from the early 50's, and they were all
shopping and got into predicaments, and were ready to shop some more
when someone said the department store closed at 5.

So, I don't really recall store hours at the time altho I'm aware enough
to know there were still the blue laws and very little other than
service businesses were open at all on Sunday. I'm certain the grocery
stores were open on Saturday; I'm guess their routine closing hours were
probably about 6PM. There were nothing that would qualify as a
"supermarket" although there was a Safeway and one or two stores of a
local/regional chain that were of similar size and content. I say "or"
because while I recall when the new south store was built (about 10
years later) I can't now recall whether there was another one or not--I
have things I recollect that make me think both ways but the specifics
just aren't there to be certain and I'm not up to looking for confirming
data one way or the other...

This was a fairly small (15K) SW KS farm community w/ newly arriving
oil/natural gas exploration and some small manufacturing for Cessna and
Beech aircraft. It had more retail and services by far than the local
population alone would suggest being the largest (by far) town for an
area of roughly 80 mile radius to the east, south and west and 30-40 mi
to the north. The estimated retail service population was probably
about 50-60k at the time if included that service area...

Today the population of the town has almost doubled and it still serves
as a regional center but the demographics and work other than farm has
shifted radically. Amazingly there were crowds at the W-M supercenter
to the extent the fire marshall locked them down to letting others in
only as a group left...can't imagine what could _possibly_ be worth the
hassle.

Great story.