While I don’t remember when Big Lots first opened in Yukon, this article says it was in the fall of 1996. A lot of times, especially in a town the size of Yukon, the arrival of a new chain is a memorable event. Based on that article, Big Lots opened a couple of months after Susan and I moved to Spokane, which must be why I don’t remember any fanfare surrounding the date.

At least in the early days, the Big Lots business model involved purchasing inventory in, well, “big logs,” and then passing savings on to their customers. As mentioned in the article I linked to, customers were encouraged to buy things they liked when they saw them because they might not be there next time. That might have been true in the early days, but over time they became more like every other store. For me, Big Lots filled the gap between the deep bargain stores like Dollar Tree and Dollar General, and places like Walmart and Target.

Over the years I bought lots of weird things at Big Lots. One time in the early 2000s, Big Lots was selling small pillows that looked like Jolly Ranchers. I bought one in every color to decorate my movie room with, only later to discover they were intended to be dog chew toys! I bought lots of toys from Big Lots over the years, too. A year or two after Tron: Legacy was released in 2010 (long after the film had dropped off the public’s radar) the toy section of our Big Lots was flooded with action figures and toys from the film, all marked between 1/2 and 2/3 off the retail price. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sequel but because I love (a) the original and (b) a good deal, I ended up buying almost one of everything. I displayed them unopened on a shelf for nearly a decade and later sold them to a fellow collector.

But, things change. Those random, weird arrivals at Big Lots became fewer and far between. The arrival of unique pillows was replaced by a pillow aisle that looked identical to the one in all the other big box stores. Soon there was a kitchen department and an automotive department and, at least in our store, a substantial furniture department full of couches and chairs of dubious quality. And, just like those same stores, big sections of the store became dedicated to holiday items. In September and October multiple aisles were dedicated to Halloween items. Midway through October, Christmas items began to arrive, some of which remained on the shelves until they made way for Valentine’s Day and Easter goods. And while I love a good Halloween store, it was obvious that somewhere up the line the way the chain operated had changed.

Big Lots became my favorite store where I never bought anything. There are two Big Lots relatively close to me (one in Yukon and the other in Oklahoma City) and every couple of months I made a point of visited one of those two locations. I went in every time in hopes of finding something and almost always left empty handed.

While I’m sure Amazon and other online retailers didn’t help matters, what killed Big Lots for me is exactly what they strived to be. Over time, those middle-of-the-road products became less and less attractive. Everything in the store was either less expensive at Dollar General, or better quality somewhere else.

Earlier this week Susan and I visited the Yukon Big Lots probably for the last time. We weren’t looking for anything in particular which is good because most of the store looked like a turkey carcass the week after Thanksgiving. There’s still lots of furniture and some Christmas items that haven’t moved, but many aisles were completely empty. You know you’ve come to the end of the line when there are price tags on a store’s fixtures and shelves.

I’ll miss Big Logs, and I’m not sure why.