Part of My Childhood Died When The Disney Store Closed in Lubbock’s South Plains Mall

Alright, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but...

When The Disney Store closed down in the South Plains Mall, it almost felt like a little piece of my heart was ripped out of my body, never to return. I vividly remember dragging my mother by the hand toward the store. I knew the best route to take to get there the fastest. I also knew that if I behaved myself and didn't jump in the stuffed animal pile, I just might get to take one of them home with me.

Sigh.

It's hard to tell just exactly what happened to the store. Hell, I don't even know the actual date that it shut down, but I do know that it happened in 2008 and that the store was open for approximately 15 years. I found a couple of old discussion forums with people talking about it. Most of them say it was closed because Disney was cutting back on the number of store locations they had at the time.

I wonder how well the store would do these days if it were to ever come back. It was always completely packed with people as far as I can remember. Whether the store was making money or people were mainly just browsing is kind of a mystery.

The Disney Store was one of the biggest highlights of going to the mall in Lubbock as a child. For some kids who never got to see the real thing, the Disney Store was Disney World. It was big and bright and playful. It felt like another world. Most parents probably started to sweat just trying to walk by it with their kiddos. The toys, clothing, and accessories were not cheap, and it was nearly impossible to resist begging for a new stuffed animal from that gigantic pile of awesomeness.

RIP, Lubbock's Disney Store. Long gone, but never forgotten.