End of an Era in Palos Heights

Everyone loves a sale...especially when its 40 percent off everything.

But these are bittersweet bargains at the Ben Franklin Variety store in Palos Heights. It's going out of business and needs to unload inventory. The store opened more than 50 years ago serving generations of families.

Debi Boremans has been coming here since she was a little girl. 

"It's just really sad with the economy and stuff that its just not good."

The struggling economy has certainly played a role in Ben Franklin's demise, but the store's owners say their problems actually began several years ago when the big box operations moved in and made it difficult for them to compete.

Marie Karlic is one of the owners .

"Their buying power is so much greater than ours that their selling merchandise cheaper." 

Karlic and her siblings have been running the store that their father bought in 1986.

It had a reputation of carrying hard to find items like the ultra thin socks that made George Voss a loyal customer.

The economic downturn has hit local retailers hard but it's the failure of the decades-old establishments like this that are especially hard to take. It's like a piece of American history...slipping away.