Dollar General Store distribution center, Scottsville, Allen County.  July 1996.

     A town in the South or Midwest that is too small to have a Wal-mart likely will have a Dollar General Store instead.  To small-town folks, the yellow-and-black Dollar General sign ("The Town's Most Unusual Store") is a familiar sight.
     Dollar General, pre-dating Wal-Mart by some 30 years, was one of the first chain discount stores.  Dollar Generals are considerably smaller than Wal-Marts or K-Marts, but they sell much the same type dry goods.  Today, many towns that have new Wal-Marts continue to have thriving Dollar General Stores.
     Dollar General was started by a native of southern Kentucky, Cal Turner, in a storefront in Scottsville, a small town near the Tennessee line.  The chain now has more than than 5,000 stores.  For many years, Turner ran the Dollar General empire from Scottsville.  The corporate headquarters have since moved to Nashville, but there still is a distribution center in Scottsville.  And of course, there's a Dollar General Store downtown.