Gayfers is gone from the mall. Once upon a time it was simply the Village Mall, now it has the more cumberson Colonial University Village Mall moniker, owing to trustees and corporate branding and the desire to own a little something everywhere.

Gayfers was still on board when I started school in 1995, and became the even more expensively priced Dillards in 1998. Seven years later the sign was changed again and now operates under the Belk brand.

Gayfers has a great history: An Englishman migrated to Mobile, Ala. in the late 19th Century and started a department store there in 1879. C.J. Gayfer died in 1915, but his stores continued to grow, being purchased in the 1950s for a period of regional expansion.

In 1998 Dillards moved in and thus the changes began.

Also, the mall has been remodeled once, maybe twice, in the intervening years.

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