Continued from last week's column - in 1991, so-called progress came to Red Bluff in the form of the Big Box store that sits on Luther Road. Several years later a second Big Box store was sited at the north end of town. With the buying power these retail giants possess, independent family-owned businesses found it nearly impossible to compete, leaving downtown streets dotted with empty storefronts. If that's not enough, nearly all the cash that passes through Big Box registers is shipped out of town, never to be circulated in our local community again. More recently, the Amazon home-delivery explosion has also harmed our local economy.