The Mall At Murfreesboro Grand Opening April 28, 29, 30 1977

I've written on the Mall before, so why not do it again. 

The Mall had a sort of soft opening before this (April 4, 1977), but the grand opening was noon on April 28, 1977. It was initially conceived to be part of a much larger development with condominiums, but ended up just being the L shaped mall I loved. I was in 4th grade when it had this grand opening. We were living out on Manson Pike on land where the hospital now sits, but we were to move to Murfree Avenue by 6th grade and then Jones Boulevard afterwards. After living in Smyrna for 8th grade we were back in Murfreesboro living right in the S curve of Clark Boulevard so I was within walking and biking distance to this mall for 3 to 4 years of my life and I spent a good portion of my time there. 

I would also always go with my mother when she went shopping for groceries at Kroger and when she was in there I would wander over to to the Silver Shack to play pinball and then down to Readmore Books where I could lose myself for hours among the books and magazines. Once I got good at pinball I could also play for hours on just a few quarters. There was a record store called Territorial House when the mall first opened, but I don't remember it. I do remember Port o'Call later. The Walgreens had strange electric gates that we kids loved to activate. I also remember the t-shirt shop called T-Express which sold cool heat transfers. When Atari and Intellivision came out K-mart set up free demonstrations of the game systems and kids like myself would spend all afternoon in the store fighting each other over who got to play next. I'm sure the store loved that. We would at least sometimes buy Icees. 

I could go on and on about the mall....buying my first F. Scott Fitzgerald book at Readmore, writing a tune called "Bookstore Angel" about some girl I saw shopping there, wasting a precious quarter or two just to get the little scrolled horoscope from a machine at Silver Shack, playing Defender in the area between the mall and Kroger, hearing Hall and Oates's "Private Eyes" on a stereo spilling out from Radio Shack, finding $40 on the ground outside K-mart one hot summer day, and what's really strange to me is one of my biggest memories is from when the mall didn't exist, but when it was being built probably in the fall of 1976 -  the son of my current babysitter who lived on Battleground Drive took me for a ride on his motorcycle on that random afternoon and I remember being very cold and noticing all of the heavy equipment moving earth not even really aware of what was being built.

The Mall would later be rebadged Stones River Plaza and by 1986 stores began to abandon it to go just up the road to Georgetown Square which I have never understood. I guess Kroger could use the extra room, but I thought other stores had plenty of room. Readmore leaving really tore me up. Their new store was never as good even with extra space. The L shaped inside portion was eventually made into a normal outdoor shopping center except for a small core of stores located right in the 90 degree bend of the L. That's another head scratcher for me. Retail comes and goes, but memories remain.

Soft Opening Ad April 3, 1977 DNJ which means the Mall opened April 4th

Ribbon cutting April 28, 1977

The photo I have been using at the top of my page is from the 1st anniversary weekend in 1978. I think it was posted by Troy Bell to a Murfreesboro or Rutherford County FB history page. I'm going to put it here also since I will change the top photo in July. Notice Stephanie's ear piercing store in the background.

The first anniversary ads I found are not great quality, but I'll share them anyways. I do like the McAdoo's ad which shows the storefront. 

The Mall celebrated its second anniversary in May of 1979 and for some reason invited Darth Vader to it. Maybe they were fans of the Empire. Radio station WMTS was in on the big party too with their rocket and an invitation to have a "Close Encounter Of The Savings Kind." And indeed, I wrote about this event briefly back in December 2019.

Notice the list of stores had changed in two years. A key making store AAA Lock & Key Service was now where T-Express had been located and someone posted a photo of it on FB so I'm grabbing it and sharing it here too. Hope they don't mind. If you were entering through the Kroger side of the mall it would be on your left directly in front of Walgreens. 

That's all for now. I wish there were more photos of the stores inside. I would absolutely love to see some of Readmore, Port o'Call, and most especially the Silver Shack game room. It was the first place I ever played Pac-Man. I do know it was owned by Lakeland Marine Inc. when it opened and Lakeland whose president was James J. Haynes and treasurer was George Haynes. John Dedman came over from the M.T.S.U. game room to be the first manager of the arcade so if anyone knows how to get in touch with those folks let me know. I've tried FB with no luck.