Fifty-seven years ago the retail committee of the Iola Chamber of Commerce held Wonder Wednesday promotions for weeks on end. Four, five, sometimes six pages of advertising in The Register trumpeted specials to lure buyers into stores. Or sometimes the ads were institutional, offering a service such as the sale of LP gas or anhydrous ammonia with no mention of price.
A careful survey of those ads today reveals that the Iola square was chock a block with stores. Not only were all the ground floor storefronts occupied, but the upstairs of most buildings were occupied by dentists, lawyers, accountants and some retail businesses or were apartments occupied by families or individuals.
Iola had a population of about 6,800; Allen County, 18,700, give or take. But the city was smaller in area. It was in 1953 that the current National Guard Armory was built on North State Street on property that had been occupied by the Cyrus Petroleum Truck Line — and a wheat field.
I am recreating this scene for Register readers to comment on how dramatically the retail scene has changed. A little more than two generations ago — assuming a generation to be 25 years — most of the stores were what are now described as “mom and pop” operations, although many of them hired more than a handful of em-ployees.
But there were also “chain” stores in that compact business district: Sears, Edmiston’s, Ramsay Dry Goods, J.C. Penney, S.H. Kress, Cook’s Rexall Drug, Safeway, Kroger and Self Service grocery stores, and Western Auto.
The combination of large chain operations and smaller individually owned stores seemed to work well enough.
But then the metamorphosis from then to now began. As the nation grew and Iola shrank corporations such as S.H. Kress, Safeway, Kroger, Penney and Sears lost interest. One by one they left, leaving buildings behind that catered to other needs.
Then the discount stores arrived: Pamida, TG&Y and, finally, Walmart. As the adjective implied, each of them promised lower prices and a wide selection of merchandise.
Today Walmart with floor space bigger than a football field and round the clock operation sells as much merchandise, or more, than that city square full of smaller stores, open 8 to 6 or 9 to 5, did, calculated on a per customer basis.
Better or worse? Wrong question. The pertinent fact is that economic forces far be-yond the control of the local, regional or state populations changed the retail scene without any reference to what the customers thought would be good for their community. Iolans didn’t drive the other national chains away and turn the field over to a single behemoth. Those decisions were made in Chicago, New York, Bentonville and Kansas City by executives who gave not a moment’s thought to social consequences.
Will it stay this way? Doesn’t have to.
Communities can use zoning and other decision-making powers to create the business scene they think is best for their citizens. Such powers are broadly used to create more or less homogenous residential neighborhoods. They also can be used to accept businesses that conform to certain standards and reject others that do not.
Should Iola take that road? Maybe some time; probably not now. When the new hospital has been built and ways have been found to reverse the population trend of the county and the region, then would be a good time to focus on a revitalization of retail.
Between now and then, each of us can help give our very-pleasant-place-to-live a more vibrant business district by buying everything we can right here and encouraging business owners to grow by helping them thrive.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
