De-Val Drive-In

When I moved to the DeKalb area, in the late 1980’s, the movie screen was down, but I remember going to Wayman’s Ace Hardware in that strip mall for hardware. There was, indeed a covered walk-way between the parking lot and the back of the store. I remember seeing speaker poles and the parking ramps. Near as I can tell the walk-way was bounded by areas used as apartments at the time. The mall’s parking lot even had a defunct “Photo Cube” which was vacant at least since the aforementioned late 1980’s.

Sometime, around the turn of the century, The strip mall was bull dozed and the retail center was reconfigured with a number of smaller retail buildings. One of these buildings is the Dairy queen. If you Bing Map the Dairy Queen, that will get you in the right area. There is a grassy area behind the current buildings. This appears to be part of what was the parking area shown in the old aerial photo. Note the, now abandoned, rail road right-of way in the back of the lot, seen in both photos.

I’m not sure if the “Wayman’s” owned the property their hardware store stood on or leased it. The Hardware store only lasted a short time before they sold-out. The ‘new’ Wayman’s Ace Hardware store building is now (2012) occupied by The Salvation Army thrift store.