Comments on: Jefferson Square Mall/Wilderness Mall; Joliet, Illinois

By: vjlobel

vjlobel — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:39:31 +0000

I grew up in Lockport during the 90’s, and remember trips to this mall with my older brother. I remember the empty wooden interiors, as well as discovering what an Orange Julius was.

On a more interesting note, I remember right before they tore the mall down, Menards was using some of the inside of the mall as store space, at least for clearance items. Does anyone else remember this?

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:04:56 +0000

I remember going to the mall with my Grandparents in the early 80’s. There was a buffet style restaraunt called DUFF’s…. Does anyone remember this place? I believe it was where the Off Track Betting Parlor later came to occupy. I also remember Toy Circus. But from reading the comments I didn’t see any recollections of DUFF’s…. The food there was AWESOME!!!!

By: KLP

KLP — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:21:56 +0000

I remember going to Jefferson Square Mall quite often as a child and teen. In fact, I was invited to hoist a flag at the mall’s grand openning. I think my mom still has a picture of it from the local newspaper. Anyway, there was a “Cinema 1, 2 3″ movie theatre there that was great fun back in the days before the 15- 20 screen theatres of today. The cinema eventually closed, but was re-openned as a second-run “cheap seats” theatre for a while. That end of the mall also had “Stamps Coins, & Shells” store. I spent a fair amount of my money there in the early-mid 80’s building my stamp collection. The mini-golf place (Putter’s Paradise” was quite a bit rundown, but it was a great place to spend rainy afternoons since it was indoors. It was eventually re-openned for a while with the profits going to Big Brothers/Big Sisters. I got my first paying job by volunteering for them. They eventually hired me to cover 20 hours per week. There was a pizza place, video game arcade, Printer’s Ink, and a pet store down at this end as well. I also remember “The Club” (which someone else posted about). No anchor store on this wing.

A second wing hadMontgomery Wards, Debs, and another female clothing shop. This wing also had a Spencer’s Gifts, Walgreens, Walgreens Diner, a men’s suit store, and a Circus Toy store (Which seemed to have the most trouble once KayBee’s openned elsewhere).

The center of the mall had a bandshell, a raised platform, plus a wishing well water feature. Several shoe stores (Kinny’s, Foot Locker etc) and women’s clothing stores.

Weibolt’s and Woolworths were 2 of the larger stores in this mall. The Orange Bowl had great pizza.

The Off-track betting place brought many people to the mall for a while. Unfortunately most of their customers seemed to STAY in there and not shop the rest of the mall.

Rick- I remember the haunted houses fondly. The Jaycee’s ran it first. It was then sold to United Cerebal Palsy Center (UCP), and then finally Big Brother’s/Big Sisters. I lost my voice volunteering as random characters in the haunted house under both UCP AND Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Big Brothers/ Big Sisters also had a Christmas themed house there as well. Patrons were guided through by volunteers who told a Christmas themed story that was acted out in the various rooms.

I remember the DMV being here as well. I think it was an attempt to get more people coming to the mall, but by this time there were hardly any stores open anyway.

The Wldness theme was another attept to re-invent the mall, but by this time Louis Joliet, Hillcrest, and other malls and individual stores had taken over. Rent was too high at Jefferson Square for shop owners to stay open, much less compete – especially with few/no large anchor stores left.

One of the big troubles for this mall was that it eventually got a reputation as a gang hangout (whether the reputation was true or not).

By: terri

terri — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:15:09 +0000

I grew up going to Jefferson Square Mall. We would always park at the south end and go in the entrance by General Cinema. I remember trying to sneak into American Gigolo there and getting kicked out for being underage. Across from the theater was the mini-golf place which later became a bar. I remember a store called O’Matto’s that carried cookware. I think there was a Payless in this wing at one point. Farther down was Record Town. I remember buying an Abba 45 there. I think it was Fernando. In the middle was the sunken seating. I remember there were kind of reddish velvety cushions and some kind of wooden geometric setup. The soap stars were from All My Children – one was Taylor Miller. To the west/southwest was the wing that ended in Montgomery Wards. The Debs was down that way. I think Lerner’s too.To the east/northeast was the wing that ended in Wieboldt’s. I remember the shoes with the goldfish in the clear heels! Very Pinball Wizard. In this wing were also a couple of women’s clothing shops – I think it was Brooks and Casual Corner. There was a Paul Harris and another store where they did mannequin modeling on weekends.There was another wing to the nothwest that housed the Orange Julius. Yum! There was a Merle Norman, Radio Shack, County Seat, Hickory Farms, later on the Western Wear store. This was a very fun mall in the late 70’s/early eighties.

By: Ann Lawn

Ann Lawn — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:58:52 +0000

Interesting.

Times are a changing.

I remember when you could still buy a Lawn Boy 2 cycle that made a cloud of blue smoke.

Thanks for posting.

By: Radical Ninja

Radical Ninja — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:19:45 +0000

Growing up in Joliet during the ’80s, I have a lot of memories about Jefferson Square Mall. Reading stuff like this brings them all flooding back.

When my friends and I would go there, we usually ended up hanging out in the wing by the theater. Conveniently, that wing also housed That Game Place and (if I remember correctly) the mini-golf course. That Game Place was where I first played Konami’s Simpsons arcade game.

A friend and I also worked our way to the final boss of Williams’ NARC at that arcade, and we drew quite a crowd for our efforts. Unfortunately, the final boss was incredibly difficult to beat. Our quarters were running low and the movie we were at the mall to see was about to start, so we had to abandon our game. Even though we didn’t beat the game, we had about a dozen people applauding us for getting as far as we did.

I can’t remember what movie we were there to see, but I’m pretty sure that final movie that I ever saw at JSM was Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

I also have vague, scattered memories of being dragged to Woolworth’s by my parents and begging to go look at the Star Wars figures in the toy department. I also would look in awe at the selection of Atari 2600 games at Wards while my parents shopped for appliances.

The first tape that I ever bought was at the Record Town in JSM. It was Weird Al’s “Dare to Be Stupid.”

There was also a pet store in the mall (next door to Waldenbooks, I believe) that always had an ample supply of puppies and kittens to fawn over.

Then there was The Orange Bowl. The best place to eat in the mall. Granted, they only served junk like your typical concession stand pizza, but they also served the Oh Joy. A sort of slushy, orange concoction that was dolloped in a cup for you to eat. Not quite a Slurpee; not quite sherbet…it was something in the middle. There was also the Snow Joy variant (my favorite), which had layers of Oh Joy blended with soft serve vanilla ice cream. Delicious.

A gang-related shooting in (again, if I recall correctly) the early 90s didn’t do much for Jefferson Square’s reputation around town. A lot of parents were suddenly very wary about letting their kids go hang out there.

Still…great memories. I don’t think I ever stepped foot in the place after the Wilderness makeover. I kinda wish I had now, if only to say that I had seen it firsthand.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:08:19 +0000

This is what got me interested in the whole dead mall thing. I remeber going to the DMV here in 2002 and was totally intriqued by a totally desolate empty mall. I went into the old movie theatre which th gate was open and it was totally eeire! Its too bad it is all gone now but the whole woodland decor was stupid and the tree was ridiculous but that was better than the crap being built now. I wish I had pictures now but didnt think of it then. RIP and thanks for the memories.

By: Chip

Chip — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:13:07 +0000

@Jonah Norason, This are a couple of Facebook groups for Old Chicago. Wikipedia has been the best source so far. Even harder is finding information on South Commons Mall, which sat across the street from Old Chicago.

By: Jonah Norason

Jonah Norason — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:45:37 +0000

@Rick, the Wikipedia page for Old Chicago has some links.

The Labelscar site map lists both Jefferson Square and Wilderness Mall as if they were two separate entities.

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:14:50 +0000

I loved reading the comments and it brought back a lot of memories for me, too. Does anyone remember the great Haunted Houses that the Jaycees used to host every year in the Wieboldt’s wing? I took “the Pepsi challenge” in the Center Court. As a kid you got almost get a free meal by trying all the samples of food at Hickory Farms. I also remember looking in awe a store window (called Hardee’s shoes, maybe?) at giant platform shoes with goldfish swimming in the heels. Now that is some 70’s memorabilia!

About the TREE. I remember reading the the Herald News at the time that Jefferson Square was bought by a group of Japanese investors. They actually comissioned a firm who worked for Disney to build that tree. One of the investors said in the new (Wilderness) mall, that families could come visit the mall and picnic under the tree — I knew then that there was no saving the mall with that approach. Not sure why they never tried to reinvent the place as an outlet mall.

Jefferson Square was the perfect hangout for a kid who lived close by in Parkview subdision and in retrospect was really a nice mall. I used to work in a store called Shirt Tales when I was a teenager (bright yellow storefront!). Thanks for the memories!

Does anone know of some sites about Old Chicago in Bolingbrook?