"farm country" = flyover country?
because they always showed Lanford was a small, but growing town in central Illinoiz that was able to sustain it's own indoor mall at one time. Any farms would have been a short drive outside of town.
Lanford reminds me of the town I went to school in, just outside St Louis county. Never had a mall, but it did have a Walmart for a while, until they started "super"-sizing the stores with grocery and automotive bays when this show started. The town balked at letting them rebuild into a larger space, so that store just combined with the one five miles away and the town has slowly been going down ever since. The only two spots they could have built were on the edge of town, where a couple factories moved in while I was in high school, and then in town where the former local department store was before WM moved in, but that's likely a flood concern area, now?
Sure, they've changed up the EB interstate exits several times, and the fast food business has grown, but other than IGA anchoring that three store strip it formerly shared with WM, there haven't been any businesses really move in. the former WM changes up every few years, I think it's a small farm supply chain, now? the local family pharmacy closed down a couple years back, and they somehow resisted Walgreens in favor of CVS? oh, they did get an Aldi, so they now have a choice of reasonably priced groceries (a few name brands you would see on Roseanne's table, perhaps) vs dirt cheap non-brand groceries if they don't want to drive to WM.
Even the local new car dealer closed up years ago, and that spot is now the StL bound exit/on ramp to the interstate. Those coming out of StL to exit there are still a half mile up the road, with no real improvements. Still a couple small used lots, but even those are barely stocked, anymore. I think the bowling lanes next door to the car dealer survived, but it's been closed for years?
I think the schools are the only real improvements? they added a new elementary, resized the old one and the Jr High. High school looks the same, aside from the addition they started right after I graduated. Going by teacher friends in the district, most of the upgrades have been internal, with computer boards replacing the classic chalk blackboards, and most kids have in-class access to the net? When I went, they had just upgraded to add computers, so we were some of the first classes to get them. oh, and you had to take a typing class as a prerequisite, and they managed to scrape enough money to upgrade most of the typewriters...save one.
(glares at Mrs.B! yet I was still able to keep up as everyone else's speed got faster without manual returns! went from second fastest behind repeat student to 4-5th?)
So comparing a small town like Lanford then to now is fairly easy for me. the only real question is: has the town of Lanford adopted the strip mall trend and/or did they let Walmart move in? because there are several towns in my area that still adamantly REFUSE to let them move in, which is half the reason they are slowly dying. aside from all the meth, that is....
There aren't many real farms left in the tri-county area, but there are a few who have managed to buy larger (~10+) acre lots that mostly lay fallow because it's all about the show of having a larger property. There are the occasional equestrian farms, but as for crops/livestock? Any real farms are dying out, which means any food you get is going to come from the sparsely populated states even further west.
of course, this doesn't really take into account the now-regular flooding, as we hit even higher than record levels last winter and were on the news again because of it. I know a few stores that got hit and never reopened after. I'm not sure where exactly LAnford was supposed to be located, but real towns Elgin and deKalb were mentioned to be within hour or so driving distance of it. I don't recall any mention of Effingham.... LOL
(The one early reference John made to Onondaga Caves (or as it Meramac Caverns? the "Jesse James hideout" with the "curtain" of stalactites. seems like eastern half of Misery is riddled with caves) was down 44, about hour and half outside StL. He would have seen the signs driving to/from Springfield for college, if not also to the Lake.)
=-=
#HowardWasRight
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BiffGG
8 years ago
I don't know that Lanford lost much in the way of farming but no doubt there has been consolidation. Most dealers were in towns as things were shipped by rail which ran through the towns. Even in the shadows of NYC there was enough suburbia that these same dealers sold lawn and garden products as the city pushed out. Then they hit the tipping point with few farm customers making large purchases they then closed down. In Lanford's case fewer farm customer's making fewer purchases coupled with a declining local manufacturing economy meant fewer fancy lawn mower purchases so dealers probably closed.
From what I see in the east I would say that Lanford most likely never built a strip mall. Lanford was lucky in that it was enough of a hub decades ago that it got the indoor mall where Rodbell's resided. This mall also most likely had a Sear's and JC Penney. Sear's has left a fair amount of malls here in the East so it is very possible that Sear's has left the Lanford mall. Walmart has built in every town that has a 30 MPH village speed zone in this area so no doubt they have built in or just outside of Lanford.
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BiffGG
8 years ago
I forgot to address your comment on the bowling alley. I would not say that Lanford Lanes is definitely gone but the probability is less than 100 percent that it is still there. If I had to guess two out of every three bowling alleys have closed here.
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Brainlock2
8 years ago
Crestwood, the neighboring town to John's childhood home of Affton, had a mall anchored by Sears throughout it's run. (likely where his brother worked and managed to send John to SMSU and later NYC) A few years back, stores were leaving, so they tried to change it into a mix of the remaining stores and artist studio space. That didn't last long and they finally closed it soon after.
It was razed a few months...well, actually, it's still probably varying degrees of rubble right now. Various strip malls have sprouted up along Watson (in Crestwood) and Gravois/30 (through Affton) in it's place. The drive-in across the street was razed years back, replaced by a local grocery chain store, which also managed to claim the plot the KSHE radio station was on, too.
(the Sklar Brothers have a whole skit copying/mocking their 5m "Real. Rock. Radio!" spiel.)
There is(was?) a bowling alley a few blocks down from the former mall that John allegedly bowled at according to one guy I talked to this summer at plasma, who said he had worked there, but last time I drove by a few weeks back, it looked like it was shuttered?
This is all in St Louis' "West County" area, altho there seems to be a difference of opinion on some of those areas? @_@ Some say Affton is SoCo, but I'd argue that, personally. Ferguson is definitely NoCo, tho.
There actually IS a "West County Mall" in the area, and that place has waxed and waned with the times, sometimes bustling, other times barely staying open. Main problem being parking (no room to expand, bordered on two sides by busy highways) and entrance/exits, with two entrances off the highways, but only one exit.
=-=
#HowardWasRight
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gentelg
8 years ago
From what I see in the east I would say that Lanford most likely never built a strip mall. Lanford was lucky in that it was enough of a hub decades ago that it got the indoor mall where Rodbell's resided. This mall also most likely had a Sear's and JC Penney. Sear's has left a fair amount of malls here in the East so it is very possible that Sear's has left the Lanford mall. Walmart has built in every town that has a 30 MPH village speed zone in this area so no doubt they have built in or just outside of Lanford.
I also got the feeling that Rodbell's had long since folded and was turned into a Dillard's or Bergner's.
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BiffGG
8 years ago
I've heard of Dillard's but know very little about them.
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gentelg
8 years ago
Similar to Macy's. Based mainly in the south and midwest.
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kristen1165
8 years ago
My small town used to have a mall too. It's still there, but now the anchor stores are JcPenneys and Big Lots, with a couple of crappy stores in between. Walmart drove everything else out.
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