Niki Thompson remembers what The Outlets at Vicksburg looked like 20 years ago.

“I was here back when it was clay and dirt,” said the manager of Famous Footwear, one of the original mall stores. “I was in here installing wall fixtures while they were still building the parking lot.”

The parking lot is paved over and cars, not clay and dirt, now cover the outlet parking area. Saturday, The Outlets at Vicksburg celebrated its 20th anniversary with sales, discounts, live music and a drawing for prizes.

“This has been a great day,” mall manager Margaret Gilmer said. “We’re very thankful for our customers and for the elected officials who came out this morning for our program.”

She said mall officials were concerned about the turnout because of the Memorial Day weekend and the number of related events going on.

“We didn’t know what to expect, but the turnout was wonderful,” she said.

“There has always been a lot of camaraderie between all of the stores,” said Deborah Brown, who opened the mall’s Van Heusen outlet in 1995, left the mall and then returned, managing the G.H. Bass outlet and now manages Perfumania.

“We all help each other out. About 60 percent of our business is from the local community, and we get a lot of business from people traveling on Interstate 20. We also get people from Greenville, Louisiana and I have regulars from Natchez.”

Store managers Thompson, Brown and Debbie Marshall say the mall’s success is due to Gilmer’s management style and her involvement, along with her staff, in mall operations that extend past just administering to daily activity.

“We get a lot of help from the staff,” said Marshall, who has been at the Outlets at Vicksburg for 16 years, first as manager of The Boot Co., then the Bible Factory and now manages Vitamin World.

“We have managers’ meetings and the marketing group helps us with advertising. We do a lot of email advertising and they help us with that.”

“The mall management is very active,” Brown said. “Margaret is always checking on us and finding ways to help.”

Marshall said the mall’s security team also does a good job helping the stores.

“Security here is very good,” she said. “You feel safe, and that makes a difference. That’s one of the things that keeps me here.”

Thompson agreed.

The kind of involvement by management here is something Thompson said is lacking at other malls.

“I travel a lot for the company, and visit other malls,” she said. “You don’t see the management getting involved like you do here. It makes it a better place to work.”

“I love it here,” she said. “It’s real laid back and it’s safe. I could be at our store in Pearl (at the outlets of Mississippi). But I turned it down because I don’t feel safe there. I prefer it here.

“Having Margaret here makes a difference. She gets to know the managers and their children. When my kids come here, they want to go see her. When you have that kind of management, people want to work hard and they want to stay.”