The shopping mall comes to Texas | Features

By Shannon F. Brehmer 3 years ago

I had to spend a day and night in Dallas this week, and on my way home I drove out old Highway 80 to Interstate 20. As you move out of Dallas proper on that drive you enter the suburb of Mesquite, a city that was one of the first “suburbs” of the Metroplex and is now part of the “inner ring” of the suburban growth so indicative of the region.

A faded sign on the highway caught my eye this time, and although I had passed by the sign and the adjacent worn, dated, building countless times I had never read what was on it. It read, “Big Town,” and it triggered something in me — this was the sight of the first “mall” in Texas, a place that in its day was a destination considered a “must” by visitors to the Metroplex.


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East Texas Historical Assn. provides this column. Scott Sosebee is executive director,[email protected].

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