Here is the now closed Sears Hometown store in Nacogdoches Texas. The store closed in early 2023 along with the remaining Hometown stores when the chain went bankrupt. These photos were taken in Summer 2022. This store was open for over a decade. As of this posting, the only remaining Sears in the state is in El Paso, Texas. Even that store has been downsized to one floor according to recent posts online.
Here is the still active, but no longer updated Facebook page.
In addition to losing the Sears Hometown store, this shopping center also lost the AMC theater not too long ago.
The store was tucked into this area in the middle of the shopping center.
The store was really clean. As you walked in the store, the appliances were straight ahead, with the rest of the inventory to the right.
Lawn and garden along with tools
The store had a really good selection of tools.
The also still had a decent number of lawnmowers and garden tools. As of 2020 the large Sears stores had stopped carrying lawn and garden items.
Toolboxes with the register to the right.
Another view of the tools, along with lawn and garden.
The entryway of the store.
As for the appliances, the selection available in store had thinned out.
A vintage washer and dryer set was out as a relic of the past. They were not for sale.
More views of the store.
A display with carpet cleaning, floor cleaning, and bed covers. I am guessing with all of the open space here, at one point they had mattresses.
This photo shows how empty the back of the store was.
One last look at the store from back to front.
It is always interesting to get another Sears post at the blog and it is also interesting to revisit that strange period around 2022 where Sears Hometown was booming and it looked like we were going to get some kind of return of Sears. I suppose we did get a return of Sears here in Houston, but it was very short-lived. That wasn't a surprise.
ReplyDeleteNacogdoches seems like a more traditional market for Sears Hometown than the places where stores opened here in Houston. I wonder if this store was independently owned, or at least if it was at one time. That might explain the vintage washer and dryer. We have a vintage 1977 Kenmore washer and dryer in the family, but the ones here are even older than that. They might be from the late 1960s or early 1970s. They are probably functionally similar to the ones we have, but the ones we have look a tad bit more modern. It is neat to see that and it is a good marketing tactic to get people to think that Kenmore appliances are (or were at least) reliable.
Like we saw at our Hometown stores, the brands Sears was selling in 2022 were quite odd. Some of them, like Poulan, are known brands, but they aren't names I typically associate with Sears. I'm sure someone going to Sears wanting to buy a Craftsman mower was surprised, probably not pleasantly, when they saw mowers from the likes of Senix and Pulsar. Maybe they were good quality, but they certainly aren't the brands that Sears customers expect.
I'm surprised those tool chests have the DieHard name. Perhaps this was before Sears sold that brand to Advance Auto Parts and it was thus cheaper to use the name than the Craftsman name. I don't know. I have a 1990s Sears tool chest and it certainly has the expected Craftsman name, not DieHard.
Our Hometown stores had mattresses and exercise equipment. Maybe this store had those too at one time, given the mattress pads for sale, but they don't appear to have had them at the time.
I can't really say I had any great retail adventures in this area during the summer, but I did make a return trip to Oregon and the far northern part of California this summer. We visited three national parks, Crater Lake, Redwoods, and Lassen Volcanic, and they were all spectacular. On the retail front, the highlight was probably visiting the last ever Blockbuster Video in Bend, OR. Bend is a very interesting town. I knew it would be from my research before the trip, but it was far more interesting than I thought when I got there. The Blockbuster really added to the experience. It was certainly a bit of a 1990s museum for sure. They had some VHS movies for sale, but I just bought a magnet instead.
There were a few other interesting retail finds, but mostly on the grocery side. It was interesting to see Rite Aids up there as they were mostly going out of business. But, yeah, it was a great trip and we had a great time up there.
On a more recent note, it's been a long, long time since I've bought anything of note from a thrift store. I rarely even go to them these days since the finds are so thin. That said, I went to the Mormon thrift store in the old Willowbrook Mall area Oshman's SuperSports/Sports Authority and they had a matching pair of Rotel audio components from 1981-2, a receiver and a cassette deck, and I was able to test both of them since that store provides an area for that. At $9 each, I couldn't leave them on the shelf. It was great finding something worthwhile at a thrift after such a long time. A lot of thrifts are pretty crappy these days, but they run that thrift store pretty well and they have some good stuff for sale. The pricing isn't always great, but this time it was and so I bought something. Rotel is a higher-end brand so even back in the day, it would have been rare to see their stuff at a thrift.
Looking back on this Sears store from nearly 3 years ago gives a different perspective than it would have been in 2022. It seems like the owners of these stores had to take what they got from Sears or other distributors just to keep the stores somewhat stocked. Picking up these unusual brands also had to hurt their product knowledge and reputation, after carrying Sears branded products for years.
DeleteVisiting the last Blockbuster sounds like a really cool experience. I really want to go there one day. It is in the same tier of places I want to visit like the Guam Kmart.
It is funny that you mention going to a thrift store. I went to a Goodwill yesterday for the first time in ages. It is one of the Goodwill stores that you pay by the pound for most items. We found a couple of items, but nothing special. There were some VHS and cassette players, but everything was just thrown in the bins so who knows if anything works anymore.
I took some quick pictures of the final night the AMC was open. Sad to see it go even though it was quite outdated.
ReplyDeleteIt is another sign of the times. A lot of the remaining small city movie theaters are disappearing. People just don't have the money for those kinds of luxuries these days. We still have a mid-90's era AMC at our nearby Deerbook Mall that still has the original neon signage.
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