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"It's heartbreaking," said a misty-eyed Tammie Weaver on Tuesday. Weaver bought the building and the business in 1999 and was just the third owner in the store's long history. "But the economy has killed me. I have a real estate tax bill due, and I can't afford to pay it."

The downtown building on Magnolia Street, across from Central Park and the famed Lorado Taft "Pioneers" statue, was built by owner C.A. Vance in the 1880s. It opened for business as a general goods store around 1890 and was part of one of the earliest department store chains in the country. There were Fair Stores throughout Illinois and points south, and Weaver believed her Fair Store may be the last one standing. Though not for much longer.

"There might be one in Chicago, but I think we're the last link in the chain," she said.

Vance, unbelievably, ran the store until he sold it to Bert Sparks in 1945. When Sparks died in 1999, the store was left to Donna Turner, who was its manager and bookkeeper for almost 40 years and who is Tammie Weaver's aunt. Weaver bought the Fair Store from Aunt Donna.

In the Sparks era, the store sold everything. His motto was, "If we don't have it, you don't need it." But the retail landscape had changed by the time the store changed owners for just the second time in 110 years in 1999. Elmwood shoppers, like shoppers everywhere, relied on the big box stores in the bigger cities to find their discounted goods for the home.

"The business morphed into something more eclectic," Weaver said. "We wanted to stock things you couldn't find at Wal-Mart."

The store succeeded. Weaver introduced bedding plants for sale in the spring and summer, and the sidewalk in front of the store was crammed full of them. She'd leave the plants outside overnight, and would often find notes from customers who had taken plants after hours and asked to add the cost to their tabs.

"They always paid, and I never got ripped off," Weaver said.

This year was different. The lousy spring weather led to a lousy bedding plant sales season. As the worsening global economy embedded itself everywhere, including small town America, Weaver's customer base declined. The Fair Store was once the hot spot for school supplies for the small city's student population, but Weaver said not one Elmwood school kid purchased school supplies in the store this year.

"I can't buy wholesale what people buy retail at Wal-Mart," Weaver said. "I buy notebooks, for 80 cents and bump it up to $1.60 to make some profit, then bump it down to $1.40 or so to try to sell them. Wal-Mart sells the same notebook as a loss leader for 10 cents."

Weaver is trying to sell everything on the shelves -- there were four mirrored disco balls and lots of luxury goat milk soap available Tuesday -- then sell all the fixtures as well at a discount. She expects she'll stay open for a couple of weeks, then close the books by the end of the year. The store is for sale. She has no plans for her no-Fair-Store future.

"I leave with absolutely no resentment or bitterness about anything. I've loved it here. This town has been very supportive of me," Weaver said.

She won't voice any disappointment, but Elmwood resident Chuck Brannan, who is 55 and first shopped in the Fair Store before he was old enough to go to school, was more than happy to.

"My parents taught me to shop in my hometown no matter what," Brannan said. "People were expressing surprise that the store was closing because they didn't know it was struggling at all. Then they'd tell you they hadn't been in the store themselves for years. The people of Elmwood don't realize what will be lost when they lose this store."

Weaver isn't looking forward to the final weeks of business.

"It's not the big moments for me, but the everyday greetings," she said. "It's not the business I'll miss, it's the people I'll miss."

Scott Hilyard can be reached at 686-3244 or at shilyard@pjstar.com.

Credit: Journal Star, Peoria, Ill.