Dixie Square Mall was an enclosed shopping mall at the junction of 151st Street and Dixie Highway in the Chicago suburb of Harvey, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1966, the mall featured Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, Woolworth, Walgreens, and Jewel as its anchor stores, with discount store Turn Style joining in 1970. The mall was in operation for twelve years, closing permanently in 1978. It is thus considered an early example of a dead mall; it was characterized by high vacancy rates and low patronage, which led to its closure. While many other dead malls were redeveloped or demolished, Dixie Square became notable for its extensive neglect, vandalism damage, and history. After closure, the mall was used for a scene in the film The Blues Brothers and then left abandoned. It achieved notoriety because of a growing Internet cult-following of urban exploration groups dedicated to covering the mall's deteriorating condition.

In the decades after the mall closed, numerous proposals to redevelop the property were announced, though none came to fruition. Over the 30-plus years during which these proposals and others were presented and failed, Dixie Square Mall fell into disrepair and decay due to natural elements, vandalism, arson, and a lack of maintenance funds. Another proposal of redevelopment in 2005 resulted in halted partial demolition. Demolition funds were granted in September 2010, due to start in November, but delayed till February 2012 and final demolition was completed in May of that year.

Dixie Square was built on Dixie Highway in the city of Harvey, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. The property was developed by Robert Meyer Corporation, Meyer C. Weiner, Robert E. Fryling, and T. C. MacDonald, with the firm of Hornbach, Steenwyk, and Thrall serving as architects. It opened in 1966 on the site of the former Dixie Hi 9-hole golf course. Construction began in late 1964, and Montgomery Ward was the first of the mall's stores to open, on October 21, 1965. A soft opening took place August 31, 1966, with 36 stores, during which a time capsule was sealed and placed on the property by Mel Tormé and Carmelita Pope. Final construction was completed nearly three months later, and the mall was dedicated on November 9, 1966, with grand opening celebrations from November 10–12, and 50 stores open. Grand opening celebrations featured Homer and Jethro, Art Hodes and Sid Sakowicz, the Art Van Damme Quintet, and Ned Locke of the Bozo's Circus TV show. The mall had 64 shops by 1968, including Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, Woolworth, Walgreens, and a Jewel supermarket. In 1970, Turn Style was added as another anchor.

However, by the early 1970s, crime was increasing in Harvey, a poverty-stricken and blighted suburb 20 miles (32 km) south of Chicago, and several significant criminal incidents occurred at or near the mall, including three murders in one year alone. In November 1972, a young woman was fatally shot near the mall in a botched robbery attempt. On April 20, 1973, another person was shot and killed in a robbery on the mall property itself. On July 17, 1973, a teenage girl was lured away from the mall by three other teenage girls, and strangled to death. From 1973 to 1978, Dixie lost many stores, including the Montgomery Ward anchor, which closed on October 4, 1976 and Turn Style which closed in January 1978. In a last-ditch effort to bring back shoppers and tenants, the mall changed its name to simply Dixie Mall in late July 1975, and soon after underwent a renovation, re-opening on October 9 of that same year. These efforts failed, as by 1978, it was down to its final twenty stores. The mall officially closed its doors in November 1978, with JCPenney closing in January 1979. A 1978 article in the Chicago Tribune indicated that two major factors in the mall's closure were shoplifting and theft of merchandise by employees.

In January 1979, the City of Harvey allowed the Harvey-Dixmoor School District to use mall space as a temporary school location while a new school building was constructed. This use, which lasted for two years, also included conversion of the former Turn Style into a gymnasium.

In mid-1979, director John Landis rented the vacant mall for eight weeks to film a scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. In this scene, main characters Elwood and Jake Blues drive through storefronts, display cases, and walls and destroy much of the mall while being chased by Illinois State Police troopers. The mall interior was left damaged after filming wrapped. A wall that film crews constructed, which cars crashed through at the beginning of the scene, was recognizable inside the building until the mid 1980s.

The Harvey-Dixmoor School District attempted to sue the film's distributor Universal Pictures in December 1981 for $87,000, citing their failure to repair damage to mall property created during the movie shoot. The district soon vacated the property, and the mall was completely shuttered.

After the mall's abandonment, it experienced extensive neglect and damage from vandalism, and the full-time caretaker hired by Harvey to maintain the property was physically unable to repair it. Following the movie shoot and the departure of the school district, the mall sat completely empty while new uses for the property were sought. The City of Harvey did not have the funds to maintain it, and in 1984, vandals broke in for the first time, damaging and looting the mall, and leaving a number of entrances open in the process. Every accessible pane of glass in the mall was soon broken. Within a year, any piece of metal worth salvaging had been stolen. Also, around this time, the large triangular "Dixie" sign, added in the 1975 renovation and seen in the Blues Brothers film, was removed. The canvas covering the JCPenney court area was removed as well, allowing rain and snow to enter the building. Over time, this, coupled with lack of maintenance, took its toll on the building.