A vintage postcard shows St. Gabriel’s Passionist Monastery, which was built in the 1920s in northwest Des Moines.
Just over a century ago, in 1923, St. Gabriel’s Passionist Monastery was established in northwest Des Moines on 47 acres of serene gardens with a grotto. The city grew up around it over the years, and in 1955 the rector, the Rev. Ignatius Bechtold, got a call from a Chicago real estate developer named Bernard Greenbaum, who was considering seven possible locations for a suburban-style shopping mall.
So begins the story of Merle Hay Mall, the granddaddy of Iowa shopping centers.
Today, as the mall pushes onward with more than 70 stores, restaurants and entertainment options and a new plan to attract nontraditional users, it’s worth examining how the mall started and how it has endured…