Small town feeling impact of business closures: ‘It does affect people’

FARMERSVILLE, Ohio ( WDTN ) — In Farmersville, local businesses are doing their best to stay afloat after seeing others close, including the town’s major bank branch.

Some residents question what’s being done to attract new businesses. In the meantime, a lack of resources means residents are traveling elsewhere for services.

“Losing the bank, I think has been hard on the local people because we have a lot of elderly in town. That means they have to go banking someplace else,” said Susan Hartman, resident.

Hartman says she has seen a change in the town over the past few years, with businesses coming and going. This past year, the local Sears hardware store closed as well as a local U.S. Bank branch. She says these closures are being felt by everyone in the village.

“So when we lose a small business like the bank or the post office that closed many years ago, it does affect people,” said Hartman.

People like Tony McKinney say his business has been forced to become more creative as it’s become more difficult to attract customers.

He says a major issue is the lack of foot traffic in Farmersville. McKinney says he’s always looking for ways to reach customers outside of the Farmersville area.

“Most of our business is brought from the outside. And so, like I said, social media running ads and doing everything we can just to help bring foot traffic into the town,” said McKinney.

We reached out to the mayor of Farmersville for an interview about the next steps for the closed locations and he declined to comment.

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