scorecard
  1. Home
  2. Retail
  3. Alaska is closing the last of its Blockbuster stores. Here's what it was like to visit the last frontier of the video-rental chain before it went extinct.

Alaska is closing the last of its Blockbuster stores. Here's what it was like to visit the last frontier of the video-rental chain before it went extinct.

Kate Taylor   

Alaska is closing the last of its Blockbuster stores. Here's what it was like to visit the last frontier of the video-rental chain before it went extinct.
Retail1 min read

blockbuster fairbanks

Ky K. / Yelp

A Blockbuster in Alaska, prior to its closure.


Blockbuster is finally going extinct in Alaska, long the video-rental chain's last frontier.

Roughly a dozen Blockbusters remained open across the United States in 2017. Now, just one remains after Blockbuster Alaska announced in July that the last two stores in the state would be closing up shop.

Alaska was long Blockbuster's last frontier thanks to long winters and slow WiFi. However, even that couldn't keep people renting DVDs forever.

"Let's be real, you have Netflix, you have Redbox," Blockbuster manager Kevin Daymude told reporter Emily Russell in an interview for Business Insider's podcast, "Household Name."

"The economy is tough right now," Daymude said. "So, people are still renting - but they aren't renting as much."

Prior to Blockbuster's closure in Alaska, Daymude said that tourists would show up at the store, eager to get their nostalgia fix.

For Blockbuster lovers desperately missing the store, and for video-rental virgins raised on Netflix, here's what it's like to visit the Alaska Blockbusters:

READ MORE ARTICLES ON


Advertisement

Advertisement