Broadmoor Mart is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Meridian this year. It opened in August of 1960 as the first strip shopping center in Mississippi.

    The criteria to be designated a strip shopping center included having a grocery store and a bank as anchors (thus the original 1955 opening of North Hills did not technically qualify as a strip shopping center).

    The only original tenant remaining in the ever changing and evolving Broadmoor Mart is Citizen’s National Bank.

    In the mid 1950s, Roland Kimbrell, Thomas R. Ward and S.A. Rosenbaum set their sights on the then undeveloped North Meridian area and purchased land from Willard Rosenbaum.

    Their vision of increasing residential population also hinged on providing people a place to shop for food, go to the bank and get other essential services relatively close to home.

    Broadmoor Mart was built on 12 acres and consisted of 126,000 square feet. Original tenants included Citizen’s National Bank, F.W. Woolworth’s, Pages Big Star, WT Grant, Winn Dixie, Rexall, Bonnie Jeans, Fewell Buick and My Lady’s Fair. Also among the first were Mr. C’s, Autolec and Southern Shoes.

    The effect of the opening of Broadmoor Mart on the growth of Meridian is indisputable. Before it opened, the city limits ended at North Hills Street (then 52nd Street). In the years following the opening of Broadmoor Mart, the northward expansion of Meridian continued, with the development of the Broadmoor subdivision and other commercial and residential projects.