This month marked the last chapter for Ohio Valley Mechanical Inc.

The 44-year-old air-conditioning contractor’s remaining assets were sold at a public auction in Louisville, Kentucky, fetching $74,600. Peter Gannott of Alber Crafton PSC, Ohio Valley’s representative, allowed that, “the price may be a little lower than normal, but this is a bad economy.”

That was, perhaps, a bit of Midwestern understatement. Over the past two years, thousands of businesses have filed for bankruptcy. We all know about the giant bankruptcies—Lehman Brothers, Chrysler, General Motors, mall giant General Growth Properties, Circuit City. But the disaster has been far more widespread than that, with thousands of businesses from the famous to the small mom-and-pop store filing for bankruptcy, and many of them, like Ohio Valley Mechanical, or Circuit City for that matter, closing their doors forever.

It’s obvious as you drive past strip malls where going-out-of-business signs decorate display windows or empty display windows stare blankly out at empty parking lots. It’s obvious in reports from around the country of this or that business filing for Chapter 11 protection or Chapter 7 liquidation.

You can see the breadth of the disaster in reports from just the past two months.

Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the third-largest U.S. radio broadcaster, filed for bankruptcy December 20. It had a deal with 60 percent of its creditors and was planning to work something out with the rest.

“Our business will continue as usual, and the company will work to emerge from the restructuring process as quickly as possible,” CEO Farid Suleman said in a statement.

Molina Media Group, which built its reputation as a marketing firm in the Hispanic community, starting in Phoenix, wasn’t as lucky. It filed for Chapter 7 liquidation November 17. By then, first having had its credit lines cut and seeing receivables dry up, the company had assets of $950 against debts of $948,068.