Small stores hold on, hold together tiny communities

MOSES LAKE — The small communities of eastern Washington have steadily gotten smaller in the last century as cars and trucks replaced railroads and people began ranging farther and farther away for their shopping needs. A small town that once boasted clothing stores, car dealerships and barber shops might now be reduced to a single mini-mart and cafe, if that. Low-income urban neighborhoods that lack grocery store access are referred to as “food deserts;” well, many small rural towns could easily be called shopping deserts. “My husband and I, we’re going on our ninth year that we’ve owned (our store),” said Jody Carter, who with her husband Mel owns Carter Foods in LaCrosse in Whitman County. “The store has actually only been in business about 11 years, and we didn’t have a store for 10 years (before that) because the previous owners could not make it work, and so we ended up losing our store for about 10 years. It’s horrible on a small town.”