Picture Enfield - Then And Now

ENFIELD, CT — Our latest look at Enfield history only goes back about 35 years, to one of the first tenants of the newly-remodeled Enfield Commons shopping center at 25 Hazard Ave., formerly the Enfield Suburban Mall and the Enfield Outlet Mall.

Built as an enclosed shopping area with a dimly-lit interior, a flea market on weekends and anchor stores like Woolco and Sage Allen, the mall was converted in the mid-1980s into its current strip mall configuration. Service Merchandise, a national chain of catalog showrooms featuring fine jewelry, toys, sporting goods and electronics, occupied a prime spot in the center of the space.

Founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1960, Service Merchandise locations began popping up in mall areas across the country in the late 1970s and 1980s. At its peak, the company posted annual sales of $4 billion. By 1994, however, the company had begun shedding some of its offerings, opting to focus on fine jewelry, gifts and home decor products.

The Enfield store closed down in 1997, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999, and all remaining locations were shuttered by 2002.

I may be wrong on this (still have chemo brain on occasion), and our readers have varying recollections, but the former location of Service Merchandise is either roughly where Marshalls exists today (my initial thought), or Michaels, both of which are shown below from Google Maps.

Last week's trivia answer:
Last week's trivia question was, "John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop in Enfield during his run for the presidency in 1960, and former president Bill Clinton came to town in 2002 to support Congressional candidate Joe Courtney. Which sitting U.S. President of the 20th century made a brief stop at the Thompsonville train station, accompanied by his wife?" The answer: Harry S. Truman, who with his wife Bess made a stop at the station in 1948 during a "whistle stop" tour during his campaign. A number of folks had the correct answer, with John Gwozdz being first.

This week's trivia question:
Not only did John Gwozdz have the first correct answer, but Augie and the late Ken Gwozdz became the first brothers inducted into the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997. This week's question is: how did you pronounce their last name (please write it out phonetically)? Post the answer in the comments section below, or on the Enfield Patch Facebook page, or on the You're Probably From Enfield If Facebook page, or by emailing me directly at tim.jensen@patch.com. The first person to correctly answer the question without blatantly Googling, copying and pasting the answer, as well as gives their actual name, will be acknowledged the following week.

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