Miami Kmart is Now the Last Store in U.S. Mainland. Behold!

The memories may fade, but the Blue Light Specials will last forever.

Or not.

The last full-size Kmart in Bridgehampton, New York, closed its doors for the final time on October 20, leaving the Kmart in Miami's Kendall neighborhood as the company's only remaining store in the mainland United States. (Three stores remain in the U.S. Virgin Islands and one in Guam).

Situated at 14091 SW 88th St. in Kendale Lakes Plaza, the store is but a shell of its former self.

Last year Kmart began leasing out most of the space to the home-furnishings company At Home. All that remains of the once massive Kmart is a tiny, two-room section in what was formerly the garden department.

A Miami Herald reporter who visited the Kendall store in August reported that while it was stocked with household items like shampoos and soaps, some shelves were barren, with "no replacements in sight."

Incorporated in 1899 as S. S. Kresge Corporation and renamed Kmart Corporation in 1977, the company opened its first store in 1962 in Michigan. The big-box retailer built its reputation on selling a wide variety of affordable goods, from food to electronics to clothing.

"Kmart was part of America. Everybody went to Kmart, whether you liked it or not," retail historian Michael Lisicky told the Associated Press in 2022. "They had everything. You had toys. You had sporting goods. You had candy. You had stationery. It was something for everybody."

But the retail giant has long been on the brink of collapse.

While it operated more than 2,400 stores worldwide at its peak in the early 1990s, its subsequent downfall has been called "the slowest, most humiliating demise in retail history."

Struggling to compete with Walmart, Target, and online retailers, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2002 — reportedly the largest such filing ever made by a retailer.

Kmart merged with Sears in 2005 to create the Sears Holding Company, but the reorganized arrangement continued to flounder through the early 2010s owing to a number of factors. The company began shuttering stores and, in 2018, filed for Chapter 11.

A remnant of the bygone retail area, Kmart joins other iconic relics of the past, such as Blockbuster, which has only one location left in the world.