Midway Mall Sports, Vacation and Travel Show – March 4, 1976

Back in the 1970s when Midway Mall was truly the community gathering place for Lorain and Elyria, there was always something going on to attract shoppers. One of the most anticipated events each year was the Annual Sports, Vacation and Travel Show.

Above you see Sportsman Pierre, the mascot of the 1976 edition of the show. Hmmm... with that mustache, he bears a slight resemblance to Yukon Cornelius from the Rudolph Christmas special.

The Journal did a good job of promoting the show before its opening.

March 2, 1976 Journal

And here's a nearly full-page ad for the show that ran in the Journal on March 4, 1976.

Bob Jasinski promoted the show in his "Great Outdoors" column of March 5, 1976. Hey, that hunter & dog silhouette looks mighty familiar.

It's hard not to feel a little wistful seeing all this. Midway Mall was the place to go in the 1970s when I was in high school. It was the perfect place to take a date to see a movie because you could walk around and kill time before it started. 

Fifty years later, the whole concept of an indoor mall has inexplicably become obsolete, along with the newspaper that promoted its events. 

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I've written about various sportsman shows before – featuring the 1971 American and Canadian Sportsmen’s Vacation and Boat Show; and Midway Mall's 1972 and 1973 Sports Show. 

I loved those old Sportsmen Shows. It was fun to pick up brochures for campgrounds, etc. I used to collect them as a kid and would even write to campgrounds, parks and attractions just to get one in the mail. It probably was the reason that I ended up in printing as a career.

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It's interesting how "Paddling Pierre" (designed by well-known local C-T cartoonist Bob Lynch) from the 1973 Sport Show became Sportsman Pierre in the 1976 version.