A once retail giant, which had a store in Charles City, turned off its last signature “blue light” over the weekend.
Sunday (10.20), the last full-sized Kmart in the continental United States, located in Bridgehampton, New York, about 95 miles east of Manhattan, closed its doors for the final time. That leaves only one smaller U.S. store left in operation with a limited selection in Miami. The company has other stores in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
At its peak, Kmart had well over 2,000 locations in the U.S. including Charles City. In 2005, the company merged with Sears, but filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018, barely escaping liquidation in early 2019.
However, about a year later, the final two Kmarts in Iowa, the Charles City and Algona stores, closed for good on February 16, 2020.
Combined, Sears and Kmart have closed more than 3,500 stores and cut about 250,000 jobs in the past 15 years.
In June 2022, the building and adjacent parking lot in Charles City was purchased by Zip’s AW Direct, based in New Hampton, for about $1 million.
