The History of HHR for its 10th Anniversary!

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today is the semi-official 10th anniversary of Houston Historic Retail. I want to take a break from the regular pattern and let you all take a peak behind the curtain of HHR. First, let me explain the discrepancy that makes this semi-official. Houston Historic Retail debuted in 2014 on a free WordPress site that only a handful of people saw. The original content was all migrated here to this site one year later, in 2015. The original material from the 2014 site was based on research documents I had been working on for a bit. I had a job at Randalls in a store that I knew was a former Weingarten’s, but it had an oddity: a basement. I had no clue at the time, but the basement was built for a planned mall, which would have been the first in the United States. During my research, I found a bit of an online retail community, including Pesudo3d of Carbon-izer.com, who still regularly contributes to research. I wanted a way to share my findings with others, so I wrote the first HHR pages in 2014. When the site debuted, it was completely bare bones, but just like today, it relied heavily on newspaper articles. While a few sources were available online, the Chronicle only had a text going back to 1985 at the time. This means that for any earlier research, I had to find the articles via Microfilm or, if I was lucky, a clipping at the since-renamed Houston Metropolitan Research Center. The early days of HHR had low but continual visitorship, with very few people ever electing to comment. I also did not feature a blog for the first year. At the time, I was working my way through college and wrote the pages as a hobby. The first pages were written about chains I remembered in the Houston area that had left, such as Circuit City, Krispy Kreme, and Albertsons. Others were chains that I didn’t remember, but. I knew I had been in Houston, like Safeway and Food Lion. This version of HHR saw a small uptick in traffic but was continually silent. Around this time, I decided to try my hand at a blog.

I was active in the retail community on Flickr at the time and had a good following there. In an attempt to get traffic to the site, I tried a few token blog posts. While they did bring in readers, it didn’t bring engagement, and I looked at other outlets. I tried making YouTube videos for a while (something I plan to pick back up) and found that YouTube was quite receptive to my content, which was usually abandoned retail, something I have an interest in. In 2017, I featured photos of the recently shuttered Northwest Mall taken from inside the still-then-open Palais Royal, which were rediscovered a year later by a writer for Chron.com who featured the photos in an article, which led to a huge influx of new visitors. I also finally had a few “regular” commenters. I followed this up with more regular posts, which again dropped off after a lack of follow-up. In late 2018, based on some advice from a friend, I started a Facebook page for HHR, which I initially kept separate from the blog. When I eventually started sharing blog posts on Facebook, I quickly gained a small but loyal core audience of readers. You guys are probably the only ones from Facebook to make it this far in the post, lol. When the pandemic hit, and I suddenly had copious amounts of free time on my hands, I tried to make a go at regular blog posts. I trotted out some of my biggest hits, like an homage to Swamplot’s Demolition Reports, and abandoned retail to a good response. As the lockdown ended, my blogging slowed down, but it became a sort of stress relief when I could do it. The next year, I prepared to return to college and start my Masters. I made the mistake of once again trying to start up regular blogging as the small posts semeed to be gaining regular traction. While I had time in my schedule to write a post, I didn’t have time for writing three per week, a decision I had to take back.

More recently, I have completed my Masters, and posting has not slowed down. I’ve also built up quite a following on Facebook. The increased traffic, along with inflation, did necessitate the advertising on HHR, which, by the way, if you’re blocking, please don’t feel remorse, and if you’d like to block, feel free to do so, and if you’ve donated, please do so. The site still operates at a loss, but the ads do help to pay the bills. Has HHR moved past a hobby into something almost a job? I don’t think I’d consider it that because I truly am not making a profit off of this, but I feel the same dedication to this site that I do to my job. This blog has lasted me through two college degrees, a handful of jobs, and a marriage, which unfortunately ended. It’s afforded me some incredible opportunities to hear stories directly from employees and from people I never thought I’d get to speak to. I’ve never been one for sentiments, but I have to say I truly appreciate my audience and the warm receptiveness you all bring. Between work and HHR, I don’t do too much else, so small vindications like comments or Facebook likes help keep me going, and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for y’all. So, on the 10th anniversary of HHR, please take a moment to thank yourself for sticking with me.