Bass Pro Shop Clarksville: A Sporting-Goods Colossus

You don't have to be a professional fisherman to love the Bass Pro shop in Clarksville. However, after you spend a few hours at the Bass Pro shop in Clarksville taking in the tackle, lures, boats, camping equipment and other fishing accessories — along with equally impressive offerings in hunting, camping, golf, archery and other sporting gear — you might be tempted to give up your day job and devote yourself to the Great Outdoors.

Calling the 280,000-square-foot colossus at 951 E. Lewis and Clark Parkway a sporting-goods store is a bit like calling Disney World an amusement park. It's accurate, but doesn't quite convey the scope of the operation.

The store has the look of a natural-history museum, with mounted wildlife exhibits and a 50,000-gallon aquarium that can hold 268 fish. Water cascades over a three-story indoor falls and down a rocky-bottomed stream traversing the store, which boasts golf and archery ranges, a big-game-hunt laser arcade and a seafood restaurant.

Murals, wildlife paintings and animal dioramas help portray local and regional scenes reflecting the Indiana landscape. A 30-foot-long mural in the archery department pays tribute to the father of modern archery, Fred Bear.

A feature diorama shows three wolves standing on a rocky outcropping, shadowing a herd of caribou. Special collections from local residents are displayed, including wildlife mounts, exhibits and antique tackle. 

The Bass Pro Shops store opened in 2004, taking over most of what had been the River Falls Mall, and is one of the largest of the chain's 56 retail stores in 26 states and Canada. Altogether, the stores attract more than 100 million people annually. 

Bass Pro's origins go back to 1972, when Johnny Morris opened the first retail store in the back of his dad's Brown Derby liquor store at 3543 S. Campbell Street in Springfield, Mo. Two years later, Morris began selling mail-order goods through the first Bass Pro Shops catalog.

Ten years later, Bass Pro Shops opened its first store, a 1.7 million-square-foot  behemoth in Springfield, Mo. 

Located just off Interstate 65 across the river from Louisville, the Bass Pro Shop is open every day except Christmas.

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