Ore. Blockbuster revels in being last

What would the last member of a species say as it stares into the abyss of extinction, if it could?

Perhaps it would offer an ode to the many that came before, each marching toward an unknown destruction, or an enraged screed against the forces that snuffed it from once-flourishing existence.

When it comes to a Blockbuster store in Bend, Oregon, soon to be the last one on Earth, it’s something else: defiant joy.

“The last Blockbuster in Australia is closing at the end of the month making our Bend Store the Last Blockbuster on the Planet !!!! ” Sandi Harding, the general manager of the store in Bend, wrote Monday on Facebook. “Holy Cow it’s exciting.”

Harding’s Blockbuster earned awe in July, when two Alaska locations were shuttered, making it the sole survivor from the 9,000 video rental stores in the United States that once stood at the company’s zenith in 2004, before succumbing to the digital whims of once-loyal customers.

It has been quite the fall from movie rental primacy. In 1989, a Blockbuster store opened every 17 hours. But in the late 2000s, it seemed that the stores were closing at that same pace. Just a handful survived in the past few years since Dish Network bought the company for $320 million in 2011 and closed most of the remaining locations. The owners of the Bend store pay a licensing fee to Dish Network.