New Official Thread. Use this one for all Store Closings and Retailer Bankruptcies.
Kicking off with Walmart Store Closures.
RE
http://www.modernreaders.com/life-without-walmart-small-towns-struggle-to-cope/39441/lorenzo-tanosLife without Walmart – Small towns struggle to copeFebruary 6, 2016 By Lorenzo Tanos

The loss of a Walmart in a small town could effectively mean the death of a town.
Just ask Kimball, W. Va. woman Mary Francis Matney, who spoke to The Washington Post in a special report. In the 60-year-old eyes, her once-booming small town was already gutted by the disappearance of its mines. But when Kimball’s Walmart Supercenter was among the 154 to close down, that was akin to ringing the death bells for the town. According to Matney, the Supercenter’s closure had made “everyone so downhearted they don’t know what to do.”
“It’s like we’re a forgotten bunch of people,” Matney continued. “It’s about all there was to look forward to. If we had to go any further, there ain’t no way. She then paused to check the half-off merchandise on the Walmart’s half-empty shelves as she continued speaking to the Post. “I hate seeing it die. I really do. You could always find better stuff here.”
That interview took place just two days before the Kimball Walmart had closed. And, as the Post continued, its closure was so similar to the disappearance of other Walmarts in other small American towns. For example, the shutdown of the outlets in Fairfield, Alabama, Winnsboro, South Carolina, and Oriental, North Carolina had “left the community with few options for food.” And in Raymondville, Texas, city layoffs are expected with the “disappearance of tax income from Walmart.”
One interesting aspect of the recent series of closures has been how Walmart tended to close stores that were within 10 miles of another branch, and stores in states with above-average square footage per capita. “It’s been part of the way these big retailers have tried to grab market share, by overbuilding markets and creating more retail space than they can support,” said Institute for Local Self-Reliance co-director Stacy Mitchell. “And, now that we have growing online sales, that overcapacity is going to get quite ugly.”
For its part, Walmart said that there were a few factors it considered when choosing which stores to close, not the least of these being financial performance. However, Kimball’s residents aren’t buying that, citing the belief that its store always had a lot of customers.
“They’ll never convince me it didn’t make money,” said Kimball resident Phyllis Noe. “I’ve always been fond of Wal-Mart, but they can’t look you in the eye and say they didn’t have good feedback. Maybe it’s just what they do: 10 years and then they leave.”