the early 1980s when Michael Nation's parents, Bill and Nancy Nation, bought it from Henry Benjamin, who opened it in 1975. Another son, Steve Nation, also has an ownership interest in the business.

The store originally occupied space in a supermarket building that now houses a Trading Co. grocery store. In 1991, it moved next door to the leased building it now occupies.

Nation says the family business will keep open another Ben Franklin outlet it owns, located at 201 E. 4th Street North in Oldtown, Idaho, just across the Washington-Idaho border from Newport, Wash. Nation says the family business also leases space for that store, which is about two-thirds of the size of the Cheney store.

"We have extended our lease up there," he says.

He adds that there's one other Ben Franklin store in the Inland Northwest. It's located at 614 N. Fifth in Sandpoint, Idaho, and is under different ownership.

Nation says he hasn't heard what any future plans are for the Cheney Ben Franklin site, which is owned by Cheney Investments LLC. Henlea's lease runs through the end of this year.

He says the family business has independently owned the two Ben Franklin stores with rights to use the name, but they aren't franchises of the national Ben Franklin Stores chain. The national company, which dates back to 1877 as a wholesaler, went through bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. Wisconsin-based Promotions Unlimited Corp. bought the rights to the name in 1997.