Closed: Jack’s Shoe Store

We’re looking at Jack’s Shoe Store, in business as long as anyone can remember but now just another shuttered store in another small prairie town. It’s a trend common out in rural parts and one by one they close and the local economic base shrinks yet again. Rinse and repeat. The statistics paint a worrying picture.

No matter how it’s sliced, there’s nothing remotely easy about running a retail establishment, regardless the location, but it’s doubly hard in a small town like Coronation Alberta. Here the population’s about nine hundred and the rural base adds a little more. That’s it.

The business first makes mention in old phone books in the late 1950s, as Jack’s Shoe Repair, but a few years later the name changed to what we see today. There are some missing years in the directories used in researching this piece, so we can’t be more precise. Interestingly, there was an earlier business in town called Jack’s Clothing Store with a phone number one digit different. It’s possible they’re connected.

Jack’s operated at least until the early 1990s (so at minimum 35 years in business) but some evidence suggests someone else took over, or some other business (junk or second hand store?) moved in for a time. Clearly there’s been no recent activity. Jack (Jacob) of Jack’s Shoe Store was in his mid-70s at the time he left and in addition to his shoe repair business he also did rural mail delivery. Sources: Jack’s 2006 obituary, online business directories and Google photo search.

The town’s water tower seen in back dates from the 1910s and it’s still in use. I think we’ll have to return to Coronation to check it out sometime when were not in such a rush.

From the same card dump…
Trout Lake BC Cemetery, Tuxedo Park School (1920 and 1956-7) and Train Stations: Viking Alberta.

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Date of adventure: May, 2022.
Location: Coronation, Alberta.

Jack’s Shoe Store, a shuttered business in a small prairie town.