For many growing up in Lewis County, and even those who traveled through the area, the former Yard Birds mall was an iconic staple landmark and popular hangout for dining and shopping for decades.
The building was permanently closed toward the end of 2022, many years after the end of the namesake business, and the future of the Yard Birds mall is still unknown, though roof repairs are ongoing thanks to the efforts of the new owners, according to Lewis County Historical Museum Executive Director Jason Mattson.
Mattson has been in contact with the new owners in an effort to preserve the giant Yard Bird structure on the property’s west end. The new owners do wish to save the old bird statue, but renovating the building, which has suffered from disrepair and neglect for years, is still the priority.
While Yard Birds remains closed for repairs, those wishing to stroll through a tour of its history can do so on Thursday, April 3, when the 2006 documentary “Skinny and Fatty: The Story of Yard Birds” will be screened at the Centralia Train Depot.
The screening will start at 11:30 a.m. with Mattson giving an introductory talk about the mall, followed by the documentary. The Centralia Train Depot is located at 222 N. Railroad Ave. in downtown Centralia.
The Chronicle visited with Mattson at the Lewis County Historical Museum on Saturday, March 29, to talk about the upcoming event.
“I’ll give a little talk about some of the things that aren’t mentioned in the documentary,” Mattson said.
Directed by Karma and Rob Hugo, “Skinny and Fatty” tells the story of Bill Jones and Rich Gillingham, childhood friends who opened up a Centralia military surplus store called Two Yard Birds Surplus with two “sad sack” bird characters for mascots in 1947.
According to yardbirdshistory.com, Jones and Gillingham were “two happy-go-lucky country boys who turned a trailer full of war surplus into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Midway between Seattle and Portland, Yard Birds became the retail and social epicenter for generations. With one-of-a-kind merchandise, wacky promotional gimmicks and scores of devoted employees and patrons, Yard Birds was more than just a fun place to shop — it was a community institution.”
The film’s trailer can be seen online at https://www.yardbirdshistory.com/skinny-and-fatty/.
Tickets to the Thursday screening are $5 per person and available online at https://www.eventcreate.com/e/yardbirds.
By 1948, Jones and Gillingham hired Dick Baker and moved the store north of Chehalis city limits.
A decade later, the building was expanded to 110,000 square feet and featured 16 separate departments with five additional businesses leasing space inside.
Eventually, Yard Birds outgrew the space and moved to its current building in 1971 between Kresky and National avenues, which has over 300,000 square feet of space and boasted sales of everything from automotive parts and tools to housewares, furniture and clothing.
A 60-foot steel and fiberglass Yard Bird statue was also erected outside of the mall both as a tourist attraction and to let those driving on Interstate 5 know where Yard Birds was, but it burned down in 1976 after Wayne Honeycut’s car caught fire underneath it.
Another large Yard Bird remains on the property’s west entrance today.
Other Yard Birds malls were opened in Olympia and Shelton, but both closed by 1995.
In 1998, Yard Birds was purchased by Darris McDaniel who had opened a Shop’n Kart grocery store location in the mall in 1990. He hoped to “to turn it into the Yard Birds of old,” as previously reported by The Chronicle.
The rise of online shopping over the next decade saw the death of many big box retailers along with retail shopping malls such as Yard Birds — a problem exacerbated in 2008 with the recession.
McDaniel’s troubles were further exacerbated by multiple flooding events that damaged the building and property. In 2017, the Shop’n Kart inside Yard Birds was closed.
The Yard Birds building has been permanently closed since August 2022 after the building failed a Washington state Labor & Industries inspection and mounting unpaid utility bills led to the power in the building being cut. Many local small businesses renting space in the mall were locked out and lost when this happened.
After nearly two years of attempting to sell it, the property was finally sold to PISTON LLC in July of 2024.
PISTON LLC is owned by Douglas LeMay in partnership with the Seattle-based law firm Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson. Plans for the building and the property are still unknown.
“At this time, it’s thought that the initial repairs may take two years. During that time is when we will look for the right use for the building,” LeMay told The Chronicle after Yard Birds’ sale. “Some suggestions have been car related activities, parking, storage, auction, dealerships, modular homes, theater, drive-in, community center and warehousing.”
