Fond memories include Christmas shopping, after-hours pizza parties and discovering blue moon ice cream.
MANITOWOC – Streetwise is old enough to remember the heyday of the mall in America, when teens hung out there every weekend and you took your list to get most of your Christmas shopping done there (and visited Santa if you were young enough).
City of Manitowoc has entered an agreement with a developer to create housing and retail space at the site of the former Lakeshore Edgewater Plaza and Mid-Cities malls. The building that housed the former Younkers and other popular stores is set to be demolished any day now.
We thought this was a great time to ask readers for their favorite mall memories. And boy, did they have thoughts to share — we heard from more than 70 folks.
Here’s a sampling of what they said:
Kent Jacquart of Manitowoc is rightly proud that a houseplant he bought at Prange Way is still strong and healthy. He even sent a photo of the 41-year-old plant thriving in his living room.
He also remembers heading to Prange Way one Christmas season to buy his daughter a “Wrestling Buddy,” a stuffed toy popular in the 1990s.
“They were all sold out,” Kent wrote. “While roaming the store, I found one ‘stashed’ away in a back corner. I ended up buying it for my daughter. Hopefully the stasher doesn’t end up reading this.”
James Mclin also shared memories of H.C. Prange Co. department store and Prange Way. He also liked hanging out at the video arcade owned by Bernie LeCaptain, a coach for Mishicot High School.
“I remember after-hours pizza parties with the team,” Mclin said. “He would open all the coin slots on the games and show us how to add credits for unlimited games. I was Class of ’88. What a memory!”
Related: Manitowoc’s Mid-Cities Mall holds many memories
Emilee Brown remembers walking through the old mall when she was younger with her dad, RJ Reynolds.
“He signed me up to race in the Soap Box Derby and we raced by the hill over by the Amvets,” Emilee said. “I used my dad’s car for this race, which at the time was 30 years old. We got to walk around the mall together and see all the cars on display.”
Tracy Zahn Testa remembers a photo booth at the mall in the 1980s.
“I was a freshman at (college) in about 1985 and home for the summer,” she shared on Facebook. “My mom took us — my toddler nephew and me — there for a sale at Younkers, maybe? I sill have those tiny black-and-whites from that photo booth! Mom has passed away and toddler nephew is in his 40s and I’m a grandma myself now. Great memories.”
Many readers shared fond memories of the mall at Christmastime with both the stores and the mall hallways decked out in holiday cheer.
Julie Brooks really had a reason to cheer one year.
“Prange Way had a sales before Christmas,” she wrote. “They had one ticket for 50% off everything. I found that ticket on the hall floor. I shopped until they closed that night! Got all my Christmas shopping done. The same night, I won a winter coat at Younkers. Haven’t been that lucky since!”
Cathie Strandberg said the mall left her mooning for blue moon ice cream.
“Early to mid-80s, there was a little ice cream parlor there,” she said. “I was a teenager then. That is where I discovered blue moon ice cream. Always will be my favorite flavor. I’ve never seen it out here in Montana where I live now, but every time I go back to Manitowoc for a visit, I have to get some.”
Mary Ehlinger Hamachek grew up in a small town — where the nearest mall was an hour away — so moving to Manitowoc with its mall was a big deal.
“I couldn’t believe how cool I was that we had a mall here!” she said. “Lots of memories of hanging out at the music store and grabbing a bite to eat at the little diner. Meeting friends there when I wasn’t quite old enough to go out!”
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Jelane Uhlig Stone perhaps summed up the feelings of many, as the country moves to online shopping and small strip shopping areas near major highways.
“Having a mall between Two Rivers and Manitowoc was great and convenient,” she said. “We had Prange’s, The Deb, Singer Sewing Shop, the Scandia Spa, Montgomery Wards, Woolworth … the days of one-stop shopping to get anything and everything you needed.”
Got a tip, comment or question for Streetwise Manitowoc? Contact reporter Patti Zarling at pzarling@gannett.com or call 920-606-2575. Follow her on X @PGPattiZarling and on Instagram @PGPatti.