A longtime southwest Nebraska building supply store is set to close. Here’s what that means for the community.

There isn't much noise in Stratton, Nebraska these days. Just the occasional rumble of trucks going down Highway 34, a squabble of geese flocking south for the winter, and a few dogs barking in the distance.

The village of around 300 people is nearly an 80 minute drive from the nearest interstate highway and surrounded by miles of tranquil farmland on all sides.

Even cell phones don’t always seem to know where they are in Stratton. The village is only about five miles from the western edge of the Central time zone and phone time displays occasionally jump back and forth between hours.

But in this small southwest Nebraska village, at least one thing has remained constant over the last 80 years. A member of the League family has worked at the lumberyard and supply store at Highway 34 and Barton Street since the 1940s.

However, that is also set to change when current owner Denis League retires and closes the business in the coming weeks.

Denis’s father, Roy League, began working at the business in the 1940s, then known as C.U. Lionberger and Company. In 1974, the year Denis graduated high school, Roy bought the store from Lionberger and named it League Builder Supply. Five years later, Roy purchased a second lumberyard in Benkelman, a town 20 miles to the west.

Denis began working with his father in the business as a young child, doing all kinds of jobs around the lumberyard.

“I've been working here since I've been eight years old, probably, pulling weeds, putting away stock, putting away lumber, unloading cars and stuff,” Denis said.

When Denis returned from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1979 with a degree in construction management, he began working on the company’s construction crew, doing remodeling and building projects throughout the region.

At the business’ peak, it had up to nine employees including a full team of in-house contractors.

Longtime resident of Stratton, 85-year-old Loren Egle remembers those days.

“He had a thriving business then but back in them days it was a different environment,” Egle said. “The closing of it now is, the problem is we just don’t have no people left. I mean, that's the whole town's problem.”

Today, the contracting is no more, and Denis has been running the supply store with one other employee.

On a trip to Ireland to watch his beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers play football, Denis found himself enjoying the time off without responsibilities and began planning his retirement.

“I kind of decided I didn't mind that,” he said. “I kind of enjoyed not having to be at work all day, every day. So I announced a year ago that I was going to shut it down at the end of this year.”

While retirement has been on Denis’s horizon for several years, prospective buyers for the business and building haven’t been.

Without anyone set to take over, League Builders Supply is likely to add to the village’s growing collection of empty buildings.

“You’re dealing with a pretty small base and we’re just not getting enough business here to make it interesting to anybody else, as far as anybody else wanting to buy it,” Denis said. “There's not enough sales here, and so I think I’m just going to have to let it go.”

Once League Builders Supply is closed, customers will have to drive to McCook or Imperial to get to the nearest lumberyard, each more than a half hour away from Stratton.

“The people that have been coming here are just going to have to go somewhere else,” he said. “But a lot of people have gotten used to not coming here anyway.”

Many customers have already been going much further to seek out deals in North Platte, Ogallala and more recently, the Internet.

“People just don't shop local because they automatically assume that we're too expensive,” Denis said. “So a lot of times we lose a job that you didn't even get to price because nobody even checks with you.”

Stratton, like much of rural Nebraska, has changed significantly in the past fifty years. According to census bureau data, Stratton had a population of more than 600 in 1950. Today, it’s less than half that.

Hitchcock County, where Stratton is located, has lost 65% of its population since its peak in 1930.

“Back when, there used to be two lumber yards in town,” Denis said. “There was two lumber yards, two grocery stores, two barber shops, and a pharmacist. Now all those things are gone.”

The village used to have its own school, but after several rounds of consolidation, the kids in Stratton now have to go to Benkelman. That’s in a different time zone.

Teri Faimon, who has lived in the area since the 1980s and now works as the village librarian, still holds out hope that the store and lumberyard can be used by another business.

“We're certainly in hopes that that building won't just sit empty,” she said. “We already have a school sitting empty. We don't need another building sitting empty. But it's something where, you know, it's hard to entice people into these small communities to start a business.”

Hard, but not impossible.

Four years ago, when Denis shut down the lumberyard in Benkelman, a candle shop opened up in its place. Instead of employing two people as the lumberyard once did, Prairie Girl Candle Company has four employees and ships products across the country.

But the odds of another success in Stratton are unlikely, given the economic pressures in the region.

In such a business environment, getting someone else to buy the business is a tough sell.

“You look at the books and you can see from one year to the next that the sales are decreasing,” Denis said. “If you didn't have to borrow money, it would be great, but if you had to borrow and buy a quarter of a million dollars worth of inventory and the same amount for the building, it’s kind of hard to justify that, especially with interest rates and all, the way they’ve been going.”’

Denis said he had a younger couple look at buying the business, but couldn’t justify to them having to borrow money to try to run the place.

“By the time you paid off your loan and all that, you wouldn't be living on a whole lot,” he said. “There’s things that pay a lot more than this does, is the bottom line.”

As Denis enters into retirement, he says he still feels bad about shutting down the business, but he’s ready to have the freedom to travel the world and see family more often. California, Utah, Alaska, Scotland and Norway are already on his bucket list.

“I'm not going to say Stratton’s going to shrivel up and die, because I'm not here, but I don't think it's going to help anything,” he said. “And I feel bad about that, but there’s a point where you’ve got to take care of yourself and I think I’m there.”

League Builders Supply remains for sale as a business, while the building itself is currently listed for $250,000.