I feel like the Pierre Moran Mall disappeared when I wasn’t looking. It was a huge part of my life from the earliest of the 1980s well into the late 1990s, and then, it was gone. I moved away from the area in 2001, and though it existed in the form I remember for a few more years, I never saw it again.
It was razed and turned into an open-air shopping area, with the Sears and Kroger anchors remaining.
Pictures of the mall you can find online these days reveal very little of its former charm and warmth. Most feature the somewhat garish blue awnings, which had been added in the 90s, covering the original brown. The blue did Pierre Moran Mall no favors.
But, I’m very excited at the prospect of seeing archival materials housed at the Elkhart County Historial Society. I am compelled to see what the mall looked like in the “Brown Era,” and to bring back some of its history.
