The Country Village Mall

Photo from Richard White

While the official name was The Country Village Mall, in the collective memory of the Ole Miss students who love it…it was just ‘The Warehouse’. Untold numbers of Ole Miss students spent many a night partying at the Warehouse. When you had a ‘nice’ date you went to the Warehouse. When your parents came to town, Dad took the family to the Warehouse. J. W. Forrester’s downstairs need not be forgotten either. A pretty hard partying crowd downstairs. Also in the mall were Scott’s Forge and Cofield’s Studio. The Country Village Mall was one of the first gathering places where Oxford folks absolutely knew that their town was special…and cool. The place had its own vibe that was so cool it was palpable!

On the morning of February 15, 1986, my parents got a call in the middle of the night saying there was smoke coming from The Mall. Dad and Mom jumped up and threw on their clothes. They ran to the car and then flew down Park Drive heading for The Warehouse. Dad drove and mom looked out the window for a glow in the sky. She couldn’t see it. They turned on Jackson and tore up the hill. But when they got to the top of the first hill there they saw the huge orange glow and 100 ft. flames in the sky. Dad just let off the gas and he said, “Oh that’s it, its gone.”