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As Waynesboro, Pa. celebrates its bicentennial this year, many area residents are thinking about the past; not two hundred years ago, but back just a single generation when this town, like most others in the Quad-State region, had a thriving downtown with several major department stores and shops to satisfy every whim and necessity.
For this town located about 10 miles northeast of Hagerstown, that period's gone now; JC Penney Co., the last of the anchor stores, closed last June, following the other long-time hold-outs, McCrory's and Routzahns which left in 1995.
Not everyone's pessimistic however. "Waynesboro's downtown is alive and growing, but in a different form than people knew in the past," says Douglas Hartzok, president of the Waynesboro Retail Bureau and manager of James Shoes, which has been shodding local feet since the 1930s. "We no longer have the large stores, but we're filling the storefronts with different faces, different looks."
The JC Penney store was only vacant until October when it was purchased by Pat and Benson Stake, who opened Stake's Furniture in December. The Stakes, who have operated a similar business in Newville, Pa. for four years, have filled all three...