The story below is from our May/June 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Photo above: Julianne Rainone / Archival image courtesy of the Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries
Department stores had a huge downtown presence in the 1950s and 1960s, but over the years, many left downtown for suburban malls.
Long before big malls, super Walmarts, and online shopping, downtowns were considered retail meccas.
Not only in Roanoke, but nationally, large retail chains and small boutiques primarily took spaces among bustling downtown districts in the 1950s and 1960s. Take Petula Clark’s 1964 international hit, “Downtown,” with the lyrics “the lights are much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares, so go downtown.”
In Roanoke, Leggett’s department store, pictured here on Campbell Avenue in 1960, was one of several department stores with a downtown presence. Others included Heironimus, Miller & Rhoads and N.W. Pugh’s Department Store.
But as large enclosed malls began sprouting up nationwide, following the sprawling suburbs, many downtowns lost their distinctions as primary shopping destinations. In the Roanoke Valley, Tanglewood Mall opened in 1973, and 12 years later came Valley View Mall.
Leggett’s went on to open stores throughout the Roanoke area – at Valley View and Tanglewood malls as well as at the Roanoke Salem Plaza on Melrose Avenue – along with its downtown location.
In 1996, North Carolina-based Belk bought the family-owned Leggett Stores, based in South Boston, Virginia. Belk has stores at both Tanglewood and Valley View malls, two of the chain’s approximately 292 stores nationwide.
Now, the former Leggett’s space in downtown Roanoke does not have a distinct identity. The site seems to spill into a neighboring arts center, called Aurora Studio Center, and a hair salon, Salon at 110.
To be sure, retail is alive and well today in parts of downtown Roanoke, but the scene is comprised of locally-owned boutiques and food shops, mostly centered around the city’s farmers market and Roanoke City Market Building.
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