Carrow's Marshall Cleaners has a history spanning three generations, said Jim and Ann Carrow. A collection of clippings at the dry cleaners office included a 1969 newspaper ad with Jim's father Ivan Carrow. The Carrows said they plan to close their business at the end of April.

MARSHALL — Carrow’s Marshall Cleaners has a long history – one that goes back 99 years and spans three generations of ownership, Jim Carrow said.

However, the story will be coming to an end this spring. Jim and Ann Carrow said this week that their family’s dry cleaning business will close at the end of April.

“It’s been a great run,” Jim Carrow said. “All the Carrow family would be thrilled to death that we went this far.”

The Carrows said they had enjoyed getting to know customers, and working with long-time employees over the years.

Carrow’s Marshall Cleaners was founded by Jim’s grandfather L.P. Carrow in 1927. L.P.’s son Ivan Carrow carried on the business, and then Jim and his brother Tom, although Tom later got out of the business.

“We were in a tuxedo rental business also. We started that in 1972, and built that up to about 29, 32 stores,” Jim Carrow said. Jim sold out his portion of the formal wear business in 2015, and focused on the dry cleaners.

“Then COVID came around, which ruined a lot of businesses. A lot of those businesses have not come back,” Carrow said. “I stayed here for all our regular customers,” he said, but business at the cleaners’ had declined in the past few years. “And I’m older, so it’s time to go.”

A lot has changed for Carrow’s Marshall Cleaners through the years. When L.P. Carrow started the business, it was located on Main Street, Jim Carrow said. In 1963, Jim’s father Ivan moved the cleaners to their current location on West College Drive.

“Dad took over, and came down and bought this building, and made a dry cleaner’s and a laundromat, and he had a drive-through right down the center,” Jim Carrow said. “You could drop off your dry cleaning here, and laundry over there at the laundromat, and it had a parking lot in the back.”

Jim said he and his siblings grew up with the family business. Jim said he was 13 when he started working at Marshall Cleaners.

“I’d ride along with the delivery boy in town. He’d drive, and I’d run the clothes up to the house,” he said.

Jim said that, as adults, he and his brothers Steve and Tom all went on to have their own careers related to the dry cleaning industry.

In 1972, Ivan and Jim branched out with a formal wear rental business. The rentals were a good complement to Marshall Cleaners, Carrow said.

“You need dry cleaning to clean (the tuxedos), and you need to press them, and launder the shirts and everything, so that all made sense,” he said.

“We phased out the laundromat, and we expanded and added onto the building for the tuxedos, and then opened the walls up and got rid of the drive-through,” Carrow said.

Ann Carrow said she started working with Jim at the Marshall Cleaners around 1987, when their daughter was school age.

“Once she went to school, then I started working. And then I started doing what I like to do, mostly the formals,” Ann said.

She said she liked the challenge of working with the more difficult garments.

Carrow’s Marshall Cleaners was also active in the community, the Carrows said.

“We did a lot of different programs, like Coats for Kids,” Ann Carrow said. “And we just got done doing a bunch of dresses for the Dress4ACause (program). So, we try to give back.”

Over time, Carrow’s opened up many different locations for formal wear rental. Jim said he and his father’s first store was in Worthington. They went on to have locations in Minnesota and South Dakota cities including Sioux Falls, Watertown, Aberdeen, St. Cloud and Mankato.

“I did a ton of travel,” Jim said.

Then he merged his business with another company in Sioux city, Iowa, which added even more stores to the list, he said. Carrow eventually sold the tuxedo rental business in 2015.

The Carrows said there were some things they would miss when Carrow’s Marshall Cleaners closes for good.

“I’ll miss the interaction with customers,” Ann Carrow said.

She enjoyed waiting on and getting to know customers.

“I’ve been talking about this for about five, six years, and I can’t let go,” Jim Carrow said of closing the business. However, he said now he was feeling more positive about moving to the next chapter in he and Ann’s lives.

“I went 10 years longer than what I had planned in my head. But that’s all good,” he said.