Store closure leaves only 2 Ben Franklins in Iowa

WINTERSET, Iowa (AP) — Life at the corner of John Wayne Drive and West Court Avenue will change for the first time in 83 years when the owners of Winterset’s Ben Franklin variety store retire five days before Christmas.

The store opened there in 1939. Winterset High School sweethearts Dave and Judy Trask, both 76, bought the store in 1978 and have spent 44 of their 56 years of marriage tending to it.

Now they want to travel and most of all spend time with their four grandchildren. So their store will become one more casualty among a dying breed.

Ben Franklin stores used to dot town squares and main streets across the country. In their heyday, in the 1970s, there were 2,500 stores nationwide and more than 100 in Iowa. Some were in cities, but most were in small towns. When the Trasks close their store Dec. 20, just two of the venerable five-and-dime stores will be left in the Hawkeye State.

“There comes a time...,” said Dave Trask, standing behind a watch repair stand near the front of the store, holding his wife’s hand, recently.

“It’s kind of like when you graduate high school and go to college,” Judy Trask told the Des Moines Register.

Ben Franklin stores claim to be the nation’s second-oldest franchise, behind only Singer Sewing Machine retailers. Founded in 1877, they became America’s local place to get candy, curtains and thousands of other items.

At the start of the year, Ben Franklin stores were still open in Winterset, Eagle Grove, Nevada and Sheldon. Like the Trasks, Nevada Owner Fred Samuelson retired when he closed his store Nov. 23.

“In the 1950s, they were just growing,” Dave Trask said. “Almost every county seat had a Ben Franklin.”

The watch repair bench behind Dave Trask used to sit a few feet to his left. His father owned a watch repair business that...