Tally ho! Just when I thought I knew of every defunct and demolished mall in the St. Louis region, life throws a curveball. I just learned about the existence of the Town and Country Mall, at the southeast corner of Woodson Road and Page Boulevard in Overland.

Opening in November of 1960, two years before River Roads Mall, Town and Country seems to claim the distinction of being the first enclosed shopping center in the St. Louis region. It was a small shopping mall, but it set afoot a trend that would dominate retail in St. Louis for the rest of the Twentieth Century.

Like many of the earliest malls in St. Louis, it featured regional stores that were previously located in the City, chasing their customers who were moving further out west.

And well, sometime in the 1980s, the north side of the mall was demolished, along with what seems, based off examination of aerial photographs, the south side as well, eliminating the enclosed mall. The Marshalls store, however, is surviving fabric from 1960. Up until just a year or two ago, the bulk purchasing center on the southeast corner of the property was also still standing, incorporated into a Sears. It has been demolished for new retail structures facing the parking lot.

Back to the Marshall’s building; looking above, you can see a funky 1960s grate preserved on the side of the store, while the back of the building is clearly the original brickwork of the store from Town and Country era. What a strange footnote in St. Louis retail history.