This story first appeared in the Post-Gazette's South edition.

When a new store moves into town, it sometimes puts older, more established stores out of business by attracting their customers.

But in Union, operators of Trax Farms say that simply the rumor of a Wal-Mart moving in has prompted significant declines in business for the 140-year-old farm and market.

Since word got out last summer that a developer was planning to build a shopping center with a Wal-Mart on land south of Trax Farms, "rumors have been floating that we closed or that we sold the farm to Wal-Mart," said John Trax, retail manager for the farm market and one of 17 Trax family members who own the farm.

In October, officials of Michael Joseph Development Corp., of Cranberry, Butler County, held a town meeting at Finley Middle School to share details of the 350,000-square-foot shopping center the firm is proposing along Route 88.

Officials said no lease agreements had been signed and that only preliminary work had been done to move the project forward.

They said they had had discussions with prospective tenants, including Wal-Mart, Target, Giant Foods and Shop 'n Save.

Marc Todd, Union zoning officer, said recently that three parcels had been rezoned to accommodate the shopping center, but that no further action had taken place.

The developers have not filed a land development application, and Todd said he had not seen any notice that the property, owned by people in the area, had been purchased by the developers.

Todd said he, too, had heard the rumors that Trax was closed or closing because of the arrival of a Wal-Mart.

"The rumor mill is great here, as with many small towns," Todd said.

Trax said that when he and other family members and farm employees started to hear the rumors, they didn't think it was a very big deal, though the family noticed that business was "flat" in the fall. They blamed that on poor weather on some of the weekends when they normally would have had big crowds.

Business in November "was not great," Trax said, and in December, normally a big month for sales, "business was down significantly," he said. "We were down about 5 percent, which, in retail, is a whole bunch."

The rumors persisted. Employees were hearing from friends and family members who expressed concern that they were losing their jobs because of the closing.

Salesmen who call on the farm said they also had heard that Trax had sold the property to Wal-Mart.

Trax said the rumors became so rampant that he had trouble convincing employees that the farm was not going to be sold.

"It's really hard to keep employees' morale up when they are hearing this all of the time," he said.

Trax said that, although the farm draws customers from all over the region, the bulk of them come from the Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon, South Park and Upper St. Clair areas.

"If you drive by here, you can see that the business is open. But for most of the customers, unless they are going to Finleyville or Monongahela, they have no reason to drive by here," Trax said.

So the Trax family recently decided to write letters to the editors of several small community newspapers, letting people know the rumor was not true and that the farm and market were still in business.

They sent postcards to the 9,000 people who had signed up to get promotional fliers from the farm market, telling them that the business was open and asking them to spread the word.

Now they are getting phone calls from people asking if they are really open.

"These were people who said they hadn't been here in a while because they thought we had closed," Trax said.

Trax is hoping the effort will improve business.

"If somebody puts me out of business because they are a better business than me, that's fine," Trax said. "But I don't want to be put out of business by a rumor."