I called it! Twenty-two years ago, I wrote a column about the impending demise of Kmart. Clearly, I was ahead of my time.
Looking back, I was writing about Kmart because the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2002, reportedly the largest such filing ever made by a retailer. At that time, Amazon was already in existence, but at that time, it was more about books (remember that?) than anything else. You could not yet buy everything under the sun — and the kitchen sink — online.
Just this week, my prediction finally came to pass. In Bridgehampton, New York, the last standing Kmart closed its doors. An era of American shopping has finally come to an end. I’m a slow psychic, I guess.
Incorporated in 1899 as S S. Kresge Corporation, the company opened its first store in 1962 in Michigan. Almost immediately, Kmart had a strong hold on American households by selling a wide variety of affordable goods, from household cleaners and clothing to potato chips and color televisions. Basically, Kmart was Walmart before Walmart existed.
“Kmart was part of America. Everybody went to Kmart, whether you liked it or not,” retail historian Michael Lisicky told the Associated Press in 2022.
Shop
Sure, there was competition for Kmart, including “mall stores” like Sears and JCPenney (pronounced “Jaques Pene” if we wanted to sound fancy and funny).
Growing up in northeastern Ohio, I can assure you that during the 1970s and well into the 1980s, Kmart was KING. I didn’t even SEE A Walmart until the 1990s. Same for Target. As far as I recall, those stores didn’t appear until the 1990s. As a kid, it was Kmart.
We also had “Big Wheel,” “Clarkins” and “Gold Circle.” That alone shows how times have changed. Can you imagine anyone really trying to open up a store competing with Walmart and Target today? I don’t think anyone or anything can TOUCH Amazon. Billions of people claim to hate Amazon, but the piles of boxes on porches across the land state otherwise.
Long before credit debt, Kmart had “lay-a-way” which helped many families get the goods and services they needed on a payment plan. There is something to be said for the not-so-instant gratification of having to pay for something entirely BEFORE you take it home.
My memories of Kmart are somehow both firm AND hazy. I know my mother shopped there. We “ran to Kmart” for needs great and small. Everything from dish soap to school clothes was purchased there. It was THE place to get your mom a “ladies fashion cozy acetate/nylon robe in snap OR zip front!”
While shopping, a blue light would suddenly flash announcing an amazing sale on toilet paper, or towels or something like that. Shoppers would have 10 or 15 minutes to rush over and grab all available items at those low-low prices. Those “blue light specials” are an icon of history. The Henry Ford museum has included in their collection “Kmart’s ‘Bluelight Specials’ Strobe Light, circa 1972.”
I remember that Kmart SMELLED amazing. I can only guess it was some combination of cleaning products, fabric softeners and the soap aisles, “Icee” fruit drinks, the lunch counter, and buttered popcorn with a hint of candy, perhaps? I honestly cannot adequately describe it, but I feel like if it was replicated in scented candle form I would definitely buy it today.
The lunch counter was surely modeled after Woolworths. Inside “our” Kmart was the 1970s style cafeteria with big juice signs, stained glass (plastic) dividers, Salisbury steak and gravy at the ready, and beautiful brown and orange earth tones EVERYWHERE to show they were “up with the times.”
All this to say that as committed as I am to shopping small local markets or, conversely, never leaving my house and having everything delivered to my porch, I miss Kmart.
You can say what you want about Martha Stewart, but her home decor line for Kmart was AMAZING. We had a patio set from her brand that blew into the goat pasture so many times over the years we eventually left it there. It never broke.
I still haul out Christmas decor that I distinctly remember purchasing at Kmart for our first Christmas in our home in 1996. I defy you to find a better looking 28-year-old garland.
The memories may fade but there will always be the faint flicker in the back of our minds. I wrote this over two decades ago, but this month, as the last full-sized Kmart in the lower 48 went dark, it feels appropriate to repeat as we flip the switch on that blue light of bygone days.
Attention Kmart shoppers: Will the last one to leave please turn off the lights?
