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Life Before the Mall
Just what was life like before Carolina Circle Mall or any other mall in Greensboro? Your question will now be answered.
If you wanted to get that nice new suit you saw, get a new television set for the family, or buy a new record player, where would you go? You would drive up Market Street, Elm Street, or Friendly Avenue to Downtown Greensboro. Downtown was the mall.
However, this would only last until the 1970s when Four Seasons Mall and Carolina Circle Mall opened. Downtown shopping soon became obsolete.
Nowadays, Downtown is nothing but vacant shops, offices, and museums. People prefer the indoor, air conditioned, and heated building to shopping in Downtown. Fortunately, revitalization projects are now underway to breath new life into Downtown.
Four Seasons might have opened in 1975, but another mall would open a year later that would live a very interesting life.
Mall Before the Beginning
Photo courtesy of Carol W. Martin/Greensboro Historical Museum Collection
This 1965 aerial photograph of the mall area shows how rural the area was before the mall was built.
The farm in the lower lefthand corner belonged to a dentist named Dr. T. Edgar Sikes. He was a farmer who raised cattle outside of the Greensboro city limits.
Also, notice how Cone Boulevard ended at US-29.