December 1961 Big Town Ad

Here's an ad for the well-remembered Big Town department store chain that ran in the Journal on December 21, 1961. (Give the image a click for a larger image.)

The store on Tower Boulevard in Lorain wasn't open yet (for that story click here), so this ad is actually for the one out in North Ridgeville on Route 20.

The Big Town ads were always very distinctive with their thick, unique borders separating the various items for sale. This one has a great-looking Santa.

Courtesy byemylife.com

This full-page ad is loaded with interesting things for sale. The one that caught my eye first was the Kenner Give-A-Show Projector ad featuring our old pals Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear. We had one in our house in the early 1960s, and it provided a lot of entertainment. (I can still remember the plots of some of the individual slides!) And if you got tired of looking at the cartoon strips, you could also use the device as an overhead projector. We used to project our own drawings on the wall and it was just plain fun. (Here's a link to a blog dedicated to vintage Give-A-Show slides!)

Other interesting items in the Big Town ad include card tables (remember when neighbors and friends got together to play cards?), Revere Ware tea kettles, and a 3-piece luggage set for $8.88!

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I goofed! We did NOT have a Kenner Give-A-Show Projector. We had the elitist Kenner Super Show Projector (shown below). My brother Ken still has ours!

It was kind of a sophisticated version of the Give-A-Show that allowed you to project your own drawings on the wall in addition to the cartoon slides.

It also came with these jointed cardboard "puppets" (below) that you could clumsily manipulate to create your own primitive cartoon show that was projected on the wall, big as life.

I remember as a kid being confused as to just what we were supposed to do with these things. We had the exact ones shown above. Notice how Popeye looks like he needs to see a chiropractor!

Anyway, that's what passed for high-tech entertainment for Baby Boomers!

Big Town and Big Lots

I'm sure a lot of Lorain Baby Boomers have pleasant memories of shopping at the Big Town store at the corner of Oberlin Avenue and Tower Boulevard. It was conveniently located nearby, and seemed to have just about everything you needed – similar to Walmart today.

I know my family was in there a lot when I was a kid. It was only a few minutes from our house, so it was a great place to pick up small stuff that we needed.

The Big Town out at the Ridgeville Shopping Center opened first. Then the Lorain outlet opened on Thursday, November 17, 1966 with the ad below appearing in the Journal the day before.

Big Town lasted into the early 1980's, but sadly the building was vacant by 1985. Fortunately, another business with 'Big' as part of its name recognized the location as a good one: Big-N-Small Lots. It first showed up in the 1989 book.

By 2003, the more familiarly-named Big Lots was listed at that location.

The Big Lots store on Oberlin Avenue in Lorain, located in the former Big Town store

Big Lots is a weekly stop for the spouse and me, part of the Saturday night routine after dinner at Mutt & Jeff's a few blocks away. It's a great store, a real necessity if you want to save money during these bad economic times.

But I'll probably always think of Big Town when I walk into that building.

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It's pretty hard to find any trace of the Big Town department stores on the internet. The words 'Big Town' seem to have been attached to several malls or shopping centers across the country that had nothing to do with the two Lorain County stores. I'm guessing it was purely a regional chain.

If anyone has any information about the Big Town stores, please leave a comment.