Duckwall Store Badges

Cleo Mastin worked at the A. L. Duckwall Variety Store in Colby in the 1960's. She collected these unique seasonal button badges worn by store employees.

 (Click on image to enlarge.)

 Duckwall's opened a store in Colby in 1933 at 456 N. Franklin Avenue.  In early 1949, A. W. Lauterbach began construction of a new brick building on a prime business location at 390 N. Franklin. From the onset, this new 100' by 50' on the southwest corner of the intersection of 4th Street and Franklin was designed to house the A. L. Duckwall Variety Store. The store opened on November 20, 1949 - just in time for the Christmas shopping season. After 50 years in Colby, the store closed its doors in 1983.

A. L. Duckwall opened his first variety store in 1901 under the name of "The Racket Store". By 1960 A. L. Duckwall company was operating 100 A. L. Duckwall Variety Stores in the Midwest and based in Abilene, Kansas. In 1968 the company opened the first ALCO discount store hoping to compete with much larger competition. By 1984 there were 127 ALCO discount department stores in 14 states and 33 Duckwall variety stores in a four state area. In November 1914, after 113 yesrs in business, ALCO stores announced it was going out of business nationwide. At that time ALCO operated 16 stores in Kansas.