{"id":8236,"date":"2017-01-09T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T16:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=8236"},"modified":"2017-01-09T01:26:19","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T07:26:19","slug":"three-kmarts-iowa-closing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/01\/three-kmarts-iowa-closing\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Kmarts in Iowa closing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calvin:<\/strong> Dad, how do people make babies?<\/em>
\nCalvin’s Dad:<\/strong> Most people just go to Sears, buy the kit, and follow the assembly instructions. <\/em>
\nCalvin:<\/strong> I came from Sears??<\/em>
\nCalvin’s Dad:<\/strong> No, you were a blue light special at Kmart, almost as good, and a lot cheaper.
\n\u2014 “Calvin and Hobbes,” April 18, 1987<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I am barely old enough to remember when K-Mart (note hyphenation) was a main place to shop in the Crossroads area, even with a blue light special or two. That location closed in 2003.<\/a> Now, after 25 years of Wal-Mart and about 10 of the Internet eating its lunch, the last Kmart in Waterloo is closing<\/a> by the end of March. Dubuque and Sioux City are also losing their Kmarts, within 18 months of the stores in Clive, Ames, <\/a>and Ottumwa<\/a> closing.<\/p>\n

Of the dozen stores that will be left in Iowa<\/a>, five \u2014 Algona, Charles City, Oelwein, Red Oak, and Webster City \u2014 are in towns with fewer than 10,000 people but, more importantly, don’t have a Wal-Mart. <\/em>In fact, the one in Algona is the only big-box store in a 40-mile radius.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calvin: Dad, how do people make babies? Calvin’s Dad: Most people just go to Sears, buy the kit, and follow the assembly instructions. Calvin: I came from Sears?? Calvin’s Dad: No, you were a blue light special at Kmart, almost … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iowa-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8236"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8259,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236\/revisions\/8259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}