Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 21:47:16 -0700

From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU

Subject: Re: Five & Dime / Dime store



Bagby Atwood in _The Regional Vocabulary of Texas_, p. 69, indicates the

following percentages in his survey of the state:

Racket store 47

Variety store 30

Five-and-ten 19

Dime store 13

Ten-cent store 3.3

Nickel store 2.6

He indicates that racket store is declining, and variety store is

increasing (this was 1962). His map 115 p. 245 shows racket store and

dime store both distributed pretty much throughout Texas, Oklahoma,

Louisiana, and southern Arkansas. Both are shown in the Rio Grande Valley.

In Brownsville, we had an old store, closed by 1950, which was labeled

"Racket Store", but we had both a Kress's and a Woolworth's, oddly side

by side on the main street, which I and everyone I can recall called

ten-cent stores .

Are there no other published data to be cited, or is all we have

the random recollections of ADS-Lers who choose to respond?

--Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu)