Do You Know What Business Was Here at The Lewiston Mall in 1969? [PHOTO]

The Lewiston Mall has changed a lot in the almost 50 years since it was built. Many of the iconic businesses that used to be here have either gone out of business or moved. Do you know what was in this part of the mall when it first opened?

If you guessed Ames, you're wrong.

Ames was in this part of the Lewiston Mall, but not when it originally opened. The first anchor store of the Lewiston Mall was Zayre.

Compare this view of Zayre in 1969 with the same view above from 2012, and you can see all the changes that have been made to the building since the department stores there closed.

According to Zayre88, the Massachusetts based Zayre discount department stores had 392 locations in the eastern US with 13 stores here in Maine. In 1989 they were bought out by Ames, which kept 318 stores and re-branded them as Ames. Ames would only last another decade or so, closing their doors in 2002, leaving a big vacancy at the Lewiston Mall. The other anchor store, Sears, closed their location at the mall in 2012 and the space is still vacant today.

Since the closing, like many of the old Ames locations in Maine, the retail space has been divided up. Today the space is used by several business for office space and a really good Japanese restaurant.