Middlesboro Mall is an enclosed

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

Middlesboro, Kentucky Middlesboro ()Rennick, Robert. ''Kentucky Place Names'', University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 1987p. 196 Accessed 26 August 2013. is a home rule-class city in Bell County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 10,334 at the 2010 U.S ...

, on

U.S. Route 25E U.S. Route 25E (US 25E) is the eastern branch of U.S. Route 25 from Newport, Tennessee, where US 25 splits into US 25E and US 25W, to North Corbin, Kentucky, where the two highways rejoin. The road, however, continues as US 25E for roughly 2 mi ...

. It includes over 26 stores and services.

Anchor store In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wit ...

s are

Belk Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with nearly 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings, ...

and

Roses A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

History

The mall is part of a retail business concentration that developed along U.S. 25E beginning in the late 1960s. It opened in October 1983 with

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

and an array of specialty merchants. The mall's first owner was David Hocker and Associates. The mall is an important retail center for a large rural area in the mountains of

eastern Kentucky Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways * Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 * Eastern Air ...

and nearby

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

joined the mall in June 1987 with a hometown store, then added another in 1989.

closed on June 1, 2002.

Steve & Barry's Steve & Barry's was an American retail clothing chain, featuring casual clothing, footwear and accessories. By mid-2008, the chain operated 276 stores in 39 states. The company was headquartered in Port Washington, New York. The company liquidate ...

opened in place of Kmart in 2006 but closed in 2009 following bankruptcy in the midst of the 2008 economic downturn.

opened to fill the Kmart store in 2010. Sears left in November 2012 and opened a new store north of the Mall on

. On June 4, 2020, JCPenney announced that this location would close as part of a plan to close 154 stores nationwide. In January 2024, it was announced that Hobby Lobby would be joining the mall to occupy the vacant JCPenney space. Since 2004, the mall has been owned by Ershig Properties, which is based in

Henderson, Kentucky Henderson is a home rule-class city along the Ohio River and is the county seat of Henderson County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 28,757 at the 2010 U.S. census. It is part of the Evansville Metropolitan Area, locally known as the ...

Literacy programs

Middlesboro Mall has a history of supporting community

literacy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

programs. The mall's use as a site for adult literacy classes was cited in a 1993 academic paper as an example of the function of shopping malls as "public spaces" for their communities. The Children's Reading Foundation of Appalachia-KY has used the facility for

Read Across America The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college stude ...

events and local events such as Malloween, Books with Santa, and a back-to-school fashion show. In 2013, the mall management announced that, after observing the importance of these activities for the community, it was donating space in the mall to house offices of the Children's Reading Foundation.

References

External links

* {{Shopping malls in Kentucky Buildings and structures in Bell County, Kentucky Shopping malls in Kentucky Shopping malls established in 1983 1983 establishments in Kentucky Middlesboro, Kentucky