season all the stores would stay open until 9. Love's Hardware kept the tri-state hammering and building. There were a few drug stores as well: Revco, Rite Aid, and Bogess Drugs. Downtown was alive and well.

In the 80's and 90's, things began to change. Downtown lost a chance at the Huntington Mall in the mid 70's. So for that we have the Huntington Mall in Barboursville. The rumors were that the old money that controlled Huntington did not want the mall downtown. Their theory was that the competition of the mall would destroy downtown stores.

Downtown did start to die out slowly after the mall opened. Downtown was likely to suffer either way. It is just the way downtowns have trended out in other areas. Many downtowns are ghostSRC came about in the first place. As the notebook.org recounts.

“In April 1998, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed Act 46, allowing the state to establish a School Reform Commission to run the School District of Philadelphia. The SRC was allowed to hire a CEO, establish a plan for school reform, reconstitute underperforming schools, hire and fire staff, and contract with outside managers to run schools. In 2000, with the District projecting a $204 million deficit, an increasingly impatient state stepped up preparations to take over the District, hiring a search firm to find a chief executive officer. The state and city negotiated a temporary deal to keep the schools open, but that still left an $80 million shortfall, and, as a condition of getting the money, Gov. Tom