There’s a surviving Ben Franklin here in St. Louis that’s a craft store.
Most of the “nothing over a dollar” stores here deal in closeouts and overstocks and don’t have “permanent” merchandise. I think the 5&10 stores’ survivors are actually the general merchandise departments at Walgreen and the other pharmacy chains.
I know I’m reviving a thread 8 years old so please forgive me but I would really love to know where this store is. I frequently travel through Maryland, and love discovering old country stores. An address would be much appreciated. 
Acknowledging first that I realize this is a zombie…
I’d say those, the non-supercenter versions of the discount store chains, and the Family Dollar/Dollar General variety stores all fit the bill. I’d give the nod to the latter variety stores as being closest in concept and feel to the old five-and-dimes.
Of old five-and-dime chains that survive, sometimes in mutated form:
Ben Franklin Stores still exist as franchised variety stores, in addition to the companion Ben Franklin Crafts stores. However, the original Ben Franklin System went bankrupt, and a holding company currently services franchise owners, who can now source product from other vendors, something not allowed in the original Ben Franklin system.
Walmart started its existence as a chain of Ben Franklin franchises run by Sam Walton. Apparently the franchise agreement was pretty liberal on naming requirements, as they were run as “Walton’s Five and Dime.” The 5 & 10s survived for a while after the Wal-Mart discount stores opened, and operated independently of the Ben Franklin system after that point. Wal-Mart was started as a proof-of-concept mode discount store to be affiliated with the Ben Franklin system, but Sam Walton withdrew from the system over disagreements regarding buying product outside of the BF system.
Kmart, as mentioned before, grew out of the S.S. Kresge 5 & 10 chain, and Kresge stores were still operating into the mid- to late-80s. For a long time, Kmart circulars were cobranded with Kresge.
Duckwall 5 & 10s begat the ALCO discount store chain (the company was Duckwall > Duckwall-ALCO > ALCO Stores), and Duckwall locations still exist in the chain.
And they are much, much larger chains than when this thread was new. Dollar General alone has about 10,200 stores, Family Dollar over 7,000 and Dollar Tree around 4,500. Not much room left for the traditional 5-and-dime.
I did not know that. Thank you for helping me learn something new today.
Sadly, that one’s closing now, too. One still remains, though. How much longer is anyone’s guess.
From the article: “Ironically, Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, once owned about 15 Ben Franklin stores in Missouri and Arkansas. When the company’s management turned down his suggestion to open discount stores in small towns, he ended up opening the concept on his own — the first Walmart store — in 1962.”
Old joke: Person who sees their first 7-Eleven says “O my God! Inflation has hit the 5 & 10.”
As long as the thread’s been resurrected, and no-one else seems to have pointed it out:
Woollie’s was the F W Woolworth Company…
Yeah, but there were a lot of stores that were named after their founders that weren’t 5&10.
J.C. Penney
E.J. Korvette
J.J. Newbury
L.S. Ayres
J.W. Robinson
Sounds like the TG&Y stores I went to as a kid. I had a huge rubber animal collection. TG&Y seemed to disappear in the very early 80’s. They were pretty big stores that sold some sporting goods and had a full service fabrics department. I recently heard that some locations were bought out by Wal-Mart in the late 70’s.
Just by chance I discovered that the TG&Y name lasted at least until the late 90’s. I was driving a friend around for a photography project and discovered a TG&Y on Cavalcade near Airline, and another in Northline. all in one day. I now regularly go to Airline for the awesome seafood, there is no trace of TG&Y.
Seems to me that dollar stores and chains like Family Dollar are the closest thing to the old five and dimes.
We had a TG&Y & you’re about right- it faded out in the mid/late-80s. The building is I think mostly storage for the Furniture Liquidators which is the only business now operating in that strip-mall.
Over the years (1960s-1990), I can recall G.C. Murphy’s (mentioned above)
now occupied by a downtown Mission Church,
Scotts- part of a strip-mall now occupied by specialty shops,
Danners - became 3D- building now occupied by Big Lots,
Heck’s- building now a multi-plex movie theater,
K-Mart- now an industrial storage complex.
Wal-Mart, Dollar Stores, Big Lots & a Krogers are the main shopping centers, but small specialty stores also abound, so that’s not too bad.
How about dollar stores? Or has inflation eaten those up too? (EDIT: Just saw those discussed upthread.)
Japan has 100-yen shops, where everything costs a maximum of 100 yen (US$1.28).
Sunspace writes:
> I understand that Kresge’s started just after the first world war, selling things
> for around 10c. If you take 70 or 80 years of inflation into account, the
> equivalent prices are around a dollar.
To be exact, inflation from 1918 to 2012 is by a factor of 15.17, so something worth $.10 in 1918 is now worth $1.51 or $1.52.
kunilou writes:
> Yeah, but there were a lot of stores that were named after their founders that
> weren’t 5&10.
>
> . . .
>
> E.J. Korvette
>
> . . .
E. J. Korvette wasn’t the name of its founder. It was a combination of the first names of its two founders (Eugene and Joe) and a respelling of the word “corvette,” which was a World War II ship. I’m not sure why they used the name of a ship. Perhaps one of founders served on such a ship. Also, E. J. Korvette wasn’t exactly a five and dime, but it was sort of a successor to such stores.