The first indoor shopping mall was opened in 1956. It was a revolutionary design for the thousands of malls across America that came after. By 2017, there were 116,000 malls across the U.S. The 2020 film documenting The Jasper Mall has inspired me to take a journey back to my days hanging out at The Mall in a mini-series of articles. .

A recent Netflix documentary sends me into a nostalgic frenzy, longing for the golden era of The Mall. We look at a conversation I had with an expert in the field of malls and his opinion of the same documentary. The conversation makes me wonder how it all started. I dug deep to find out where and when The Mall first began as a favorite pastime for teenagers across the nation.