Trust me; I love a “dead mall” just as much as any other explorer or lover of urban decay, but with Chapel Hill Mall, this surely is NOT the case.

I have watched it for years now, deteriorating in such an incredible, beautifully destructive way. From the initial abandonment when all was still fairly pristine – shop windows intact – to looking like a bomb dropped – windows smashed and glass tossed all around as trees begin to grow wildly throughout. This is definitely one of the most bizarre “forests” you will ever take a hike through.

I wanted to post this here, before more lies begin to surface across the face of the Internet. There’s a difference between having a little bit of fun, telling a story and just purely blasting a bunch of lies to people who are actually interested in LEARNING about our history. Why would you want to give a false history? Isn’t the point of documenting these places to bring a bit of attention to the matter at hand of all that we have left behind?

You could call it a winter wonderland, though I feel that would not be doing it proper justice; it was much more than that. Constantly shifting weight from so much snow after years of neglect had weakened the glass of skylights above, causing ceilings to bust open overhead. It was as if clouds had fallen from the sky, filling this normally dark and desolate destruction with a brand new, much brighter life.

A dusty pay phone hangs from its metal cord amongst the massive heap of destruction surrounding it. As I stood centered within this impressive, eerily quiet structure, all I could wonder was “where has all of the life gone?” In 1976 the world’s largest shopping mall would open its doors for the first time to shoppers from around the country.

Not many explorations can give you such a great feeling of tranquility as you stroll the space, which used to be occupied by hundreds or thousands of America’s consumers, angst-ridden teenagers, jocks and cheerleaders. The vastness now sits in darkness, with only the skylights illuminating the interior, while the silence grips open space and fills the air with a very real sound of emptiness.

Rolling Acres Mall was developed by Forest City Enterprises. It opened in Akron, Ohio with Sears and 21 stores on August 6, 1975, and had more than 50 stores by year’s end. JCPenney opened a year later as a second anchor. A new wing, called the Court of Aquarius, was added in 1977, including a large aquarium (which was later removed) and a third anchor store, Montgomery Ward.