Celebrating Five Years of The Mid-South Retail Blog!

Hard to believe it's been this long already, but today marks the Mid-South Retail Blog's fifth anniversary! Many thanks go out, as always, to our dedicated readers, as well as the new visitors and the casual checker-inners. Every single one of you who takes the time out of your day to read something I wrote and/or published on this website means a whole lot to me, and I sincerely appreciate it. Please keep coming back, and if you know others who would be interested in reading this or any other retail blog listed on the sidebar, consider referring them as well!

Our top five posts remain the same as ever - somewhat disappointingly, lol - so I'm not even going to list them out this year. Our pageviews are fairly steady as well; between 2018 and 2019 that stat increased by approximately 16,000, and that's close to the same for this past year as well, where we grew from 76,616 on March 17th, 2019, to 94,043 today (an increase of 17,427). Remember, I've got a special 100,000 pageviews celebration post in the pipeline, so the sooner y'all can get the blog to that milestone, the sooner you'll get to see some really cool stuff!! (I can't guarantee the post will go up at the exact moment we break 100K, of course. It might even go up before then, or worst case scenario, a little while after. But the thought still counts.)

I love reading and responding to your comments - those might mean even more to me than your readership itself - so please, keep 'em coming as we plow forward into 2020. I also love getting to feature your contributor posts, so if you ever have any text and/or images to share (or heck, just want to chat about retail!), don't hesitate to email me at midsouthretailblog [at] gmail [dot] com. If you have any feedback for me about anything you've read on the blog, or about the website itself, feel free to share that with me, too.

Perhaps the blog's crowning achievement in 2019 was being contacted for an interview with The Daily Memphian, for a feature written by Wayne Risher chronicling "The rise and fall of Coldwater's pride, Fred's Inc." (which you can check out here). A large part of what I try to accomplish with this blog is the documentation of retail history, either that which has been lost to time already or (as in the case of Fred's) that which is disappearing before our very eyes. To that end, we had a lot of additions to our ongoing "Lost Histories" series last year, including the debut of a new "Broken Chains Edition" subseries inspired by the separate blog of the same name. More of those, of course, will be coming your way in the future, alongside plenty of Fred's posts as well.

Besides that, we also broke 100 posts last year, plus we introduced a new logo which expands our coverage horizon beyond the counties featured in our previous logo. In the future, I hope to feature more content from other parts of my home state of Mississippi, specifically the capitol region. So while the Memphis metro area is still the heart of the Mid-South, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to expand our focus to include the entirety of the states of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. And with our "Beyond the Mid-South" series, of course, the blog is open to anything, anywhere!

I'm going to try something a little different this year and close out this post with a list of all of our posts in 2019, similar to what my friend Albertsons Florida Blog does in his anniversary posts (which this concept was inspired by in the first place). If you recognize some you haven't read and wish to, by all means, please go ahead! And if you recognize some you have read but want to read again, be my guest :)  You are always welcome to explore the blog's entire five-year archive using the handy sidebar features, too.

January 2019
For the Record (...Store)
Contributor Post: Memphis Area 7-Eleven Stores

February 2019
How Goodwill Florida Wound Up in North Mississippi

March 2019
Celebrating Four Years of The Mid-South Retail Blog!
Dirt Cheap (Former Wal-Mart), Batesville, MS

April 2019
Rite Aid Closing, Southaven, MS

May 2019
DeSoto Pointe (Unbuilt Lifestyle Center), Southaven, MS
Broken Chain: Bonanza Steakhouse, Tupelo, MS

June 2019
Rhodes Family Price Chopper, Branson, MO
Fred's Store #1 Closing, Coldwater, MS
JCPenney Closing (Chickasaw Plaza), Blytheville, AR

July 2019
Broken Chain: Danver's Restaurant, Olive Branch, MS
Fred's Flagship Store Closing, Getwell Road Headquarters, Memphis, TN
Contributor Post: Suncoast Motion Picture Company, Lloyd Center, Portland, OR
Fred's Franchise Store Closing, Munford, TN (BONUS: The Final 11 Fred's Franchises)

August 2019
Rite Aid Closing, Germantown, TN

September 2019
McDonald's Express, Quince Road, Memphis, TN

October 2019
What Could Have Been: Fred's Discount Depot, West Memphis, AR (BONUS: "Bluff City Law")
Orange Mound Kroger, and New Blog Logo!

November 2019
O Kroger, Where Art Thou? - Arkansas and Non-Metro TN/KY/MO Listing
O Kroger, Where Art Thou? - Full Delta Division Store List
100 Posts!

December 2019
Rite Aid, Union Avenue, Memphis, TN
Memphis-Area Rite Aid Locations (2018)

Five years, y'all - it's gone by fast, and it's been great fun! I'm looking forward to five more, and then some :)  Again, thanks so much for reading the Mid-South Retail Blog. I've got more great content coming your way soon (both here and on flickr). Until then, and as always, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell