How do you save a dead depressed town or community?

If those were the stores, it died a long time ago. A community is like a language. It has to grow and change to stay alive. Not like that one where there's two speakers left and they hate each other.

Sears and Kmart, etc were old stores. Like the fashion they sell, the shopping experience comes and goes. People don't want that anymore and among other factors, the ones who wanted something else went to where it is. Including the jobs those vibrant stores provide. As the entropy continues, the crime and property values go down and snowballs to where it becomes impossible to fix.

In extremely rural communities which are what they are, the county seat will always be a draw. Government related affairs and business will provide enough jobs and homes to keep the town going, even if that's all there is there. But most likely, in the opposite of entropy, the file clerk needs new shoes so the store will be there for her and her son needs a job so he works there and they eat at Taco Bell and the Taco Bell worker stops at the Dollar store and they create garbage and flush toilets and get mail... by that point the community needs a college and pot shop.

Legalise prostitution and gambling.