Midway Mall Ad – December 1, 1968

The view from last weekend

Midway Mall was in the news last month (here), with redevelopment plans presented to Elyria City Council by an outside consultant. The study concluded that changes are needed for the mall to survive in this era in which open-air shopping villages (like Legacy Village and Crocker Park) are the preferred destination for people who want to spend money.

So it’s a good time to look back at the above holiday-themed Midway Mall ad, which ran in the Journal on December 1, 1968 back when the mall was only about two years old. (It opened late September 1966.)

The ad mentions a few of the mall’s seasonal attractions, including Fort Christmas (anyone remember it?) and the Talking Christmas Tree. The ad also includes a great map that shows how today's Route 2 back then only extended from Baumhart Road to Route 57.

The ad also points out that the temperature inside the mall is kept at a comfortable 72º. That was one of the reasons that the mall helped kill both Downtown Lorain and O’Neil - Sheffield Center.

Today, it’s hard to believe that people prefer to walk from store to store – out in the December deep freeze – at places like Crocker Park.

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UPDATE (December 23, 2016)
Checking the comments on this post, I noticed there's an interest in which stores were part of the mall when it opened. So I checked the 1967 Elyria city directory and grabbed this listing (below). I had forgotten all about some of those stores!

By the way, I've done several Midway Mall-related posts in the last seven years.