Wyoming Valley Mall
shopping mall in Pennsylvania, United States
Wyoming Valley Mall is a shopping mall located in Wilkes-Barre Township, Pennsylvania. It is anchored by JCPenney.
History
Work began on the mall in April 1968, when land was purchased from the Blue Coal Corporation. Illegally dumped garbage from the East Side Landfill Authority was removed during early work. Sears opened before the mall in early 1971. Pomeroy's opened in August and JCPenney in April 1972. Wyoming Valley Mall did not become successful until Hurricane Agnes in 1972 caused significant damage to the surrounding area and the post-disaster need for supplies. Multiple movie theaters have existed at the mall, opening in 1972 with two screens inside, and later adding another three outside in 1977. Zollinger closed in October 1977, with Hess's opening in May 1978. The store was expanded during Hess's tenure, before it was sold by Crown American to Kaufmann's in 1994.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wyoming Valley Mall” is shopping mall in Pennsylvania, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wyoming, Valley and Mall, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “shopping mall in Pennsylvania, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8040399. Authority coordinates are 41.247, -75.845. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 1971, 1972 and 1977.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Wyoming Valley Mall”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Wyoming Valley Mall primary sources, Wyoming Valley Mall archive and Wyoming research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Wyoming Valley Mall”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Wyoming Valley Mall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.