When Big Boxes Attack

Way back when, in 1963, my family moved to Feds Creek, joining refugees who were being moved out of the way of the Fishtrap Reservoir in finding new places to live. Well, my Dad was originally from this area, so this was a move back home to him, but it also meant facing a new reality, and that was that Pikeville was no longer the closest town to us. We were now a good deal closer to the county seat of Buchanan County, Va., otherwise known as Grundy.

Here’s the thing about Grundy; it wasn’t exactly a really big town. My maternal uncle, Millard Justice, used to joke that when you drove through it, you should try not to blink any more that was necessary, as this would cause you to miss seeing a lot of the town.

But it had pretty much everything that was necessary at the time, including clothing stores for back to school duds, what we considered to be a large department store, the now defunct Ben Franklin, and of course Grundy was the home of Jack Smith’s first store, a Piggly Wiggly. So what more could you want?

What we didn’t know then was the changes that would be wrought in consumer sales in the coming years. Little did we know that the big box stores were on their way and department stores like the G. C. Murphy in Pikeville, or Grundy’s Ben Franklin, would one day fall prey to the likes of Wal-Mart.

For years Grundy held pretty much all we needed in the way of consumer goods, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, things changed, and one day we woke up to see a lot of the stores in Grundy closing. And with the advent of the Wal-Marts in Pikeville, we suddenly had a need to travel those extra miles. Suddenly 37 miles wasn’t too far to drive, especially when Grundy had no comparable stores.

Well, that was then, this is now. If you haven’t been in Grundy in a while, you’re in for a bit of a shock. In its own way, Grundy has emulated Pikeville’s cut through project on a smaller scale. Where the main street was, and where a lot of businesses were, you now find a four-lane road. All that is left of Main Street is a bank, the court house, and the old Pure-Oil Station.

That ridge that was across the river has now been leveled and a large three-story building has been erected. This was supposed to be the new downtown for Grundy. Instead the town gets a Wal-Mart. The cost for the area this big box built atop a two story parking garage will occupy was some $200 million dollars, courtesy of the feds.

Well, of course, having a Wal-Mart so close at hand is going to bring changes for everyone. For those of us in Kentucky who have given up going to Grundy to shop, we can once again point our vehicles east instead of west.

But for those who live in Grundy, bigger changes may be coming. Those local businesses that managed to hang on there will find a competitor that won’t be so easy to deal with, and many will not survive. Well, this is private enterprise and survival of the fittest.