Anyone Have Photos of the Triangle Mall?

I got to thinking last night about some places I didn’t get photos of on my most recent visit to my hometown of Longview, Washington. The Nutty Narrows Bridge, Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts and the Triangle Center all came to mind.

The Triangle Center led me to think a little bit about the mall that used to occupy the space. It was Longview/Kelso’s first mall, simply known as Triangle Mall, presumably for the triangle of streets around it (15th Avenue, Washington Way and Ocean Beach Highway).

Oh, the wonderful Triangle Mall. I remember going there many times as a kid and while it wouldn’t have ordinarily been a place to really write home about, it had a small-town charm to it while still maintaining a good customer base for years.

Triangle Mall had a Rite Aid, Montgomery Ward, Newberrys, Radio Shack, and even an auto licensing place. One neat store was Excalibur Cutlery, which still exists in the Vancouver Mall today.

I remember going into Montgomery Ward to shop for clothes every now and then and what an interesting place that was. Every now and then I’d sneak off to the electronics section — excuse me, Electric Ave. — and play around on the Packard Bell computers. Windows 3.1, baby.

Our family used to get our haircuts at a place just down the corridor from Wards, called Willoughbys. So not only did a trip to the mall mean we needed clothes or something, it meant our hair was too long.

My favorite store in that mall, and probably of all time, was HobbyTown USA. That place had everything a model train enthusiast such as myself could ever want. I remember just looking at a few of the train layout books they had and wondering if I could ever build something that grandiose.

HobbyTown USA shut down in 2000 or ‘01, I believe, and I was mad. The only other place remotely local that I ever saw a HobbyTown USA was at the Lewis County Mall in Chehalis, and that brought back some of the nostalgia but it wasn’t the same because I had to drive 45 miles to get there.

Wards shut down in 2000 and ultimately meant the demise of the mall. Triangle tried to stay open for a couple years, but Rite Aid and Newberrys as anchors couldn’t sustain business the mall needed to operate. Triangle Mall was eventually sold to a private developer, who then tore down the mall in 2004.

The place thrives once again as an open-air shopping district, however — there’s an Ace Hardware, Applebees, Just Music & More (one of my favorite stores ever), Pizza Schmizza and a whole bunch of stores that left Three Rivers Mall in Kelso like Lane Bryant and EB Games.

Ah, memories. Gotta love ‘em.

I’m wondering if anyone out there has photos of the Triangle Mall at any point it was open, and are willing to share them as a piece of nostalgic history. If so, contact me at chris -AT- chris-brewer DOT com. Interior shots of the mall are coveted.

I miss the old Triangle Mall, and the fact Three Rivers is all but on life support doesn’t help matters either.