The Crossroads, when whizzing by on Highway 431, seems just like any old small town strip mall, modern and colorful and fairly active. But the sign on the highway says The Crossroads Mall. Albertville has its own indoor mall.

The indoor portion of Crossroads Mall is very small, but also very bright and very well maintained. (The bathrooms were some of the cleanest public restrooms I've ever seen.) There were a few people scattered about, but not much else was going on.

Sears, one of the two anchors, maintains a small store. In fact, it still has an entrance into the mall.

But the other anchor, Peebles, has sealed its mall entrance. This is the darkest and emptiest part of the mall.

At the very rear of the mall was its third anchor, the Mall Garden Theaters. Though dated, it looked like it could still be open. All of the snack bar equipment was still there.

But an old woman we ran into who wanted to know "what we were doing" informed us that the theater was closed. In fact, she continued, it had been for years. A closer look at the theater showed that it was absolutely abandoned.

When we drove behind the mall, it was apparent that she was right. The labeling on the old theater was classic and decayed just enough. The markings on the old theater one point out "Additional Parking" that hasn't been needed for years.

During our conversation, I asked the old woman how long the mall had been open. She guessed that it came to be sometime in the seventies. Then I mentioned that I wanted to take pictures of the place before it was gone. She seemed just short of offended by the statement. "This place will never be gone," she said with a smile before walking off. I sighed. Time and booming development between Albertville and the resort town of Guntersville, not nostalgia, will be the ones to decide the Crossroads Mall's fate.

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