The towering Crystal City district started, in the early 1960s, as a gathering of office towers, hotels, apartments and condominiums.
Photo from Wikipedia / Aaron Kuhn
Welcome to the largest mall and retail history site on the internet. The MALL HALL OF FAME is a vintage shopping mall scrapbook. Its focus is on shopping complexes built -in the USA- between 1946 and 1979. This site includes historical sections about regional department stores, discount stores, 5 & 10 stores and supermarkets. Don't forget to visit our four Shopping Mall Memory Lanes, which transport you through time to a mall in 1956, 1963, 1970 and 1977!
APACHE PLAZA
37th Avenue Northeast and Silver Lake Road
St. Anthony (Village), Minnesota
The nation's first regional-class, fully-enclosed shopping complex was SOUTHDALE CENTER (1956), which was developed in the southwestern environs of Minneapolis. The second enclosed center in the North Star State was built in the "North Twin Cities" area of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Ground was broken for APACHE PLAZA on April 18, 1960. A traditional (with-shovel) ceremony was eschewed in favor of one more dynamic. Three local beauty queens detonated an explosion, which leveled a small hill.
The "eleven million dollar compact city" was built on a 42-acre plot; previously a pig farm. The site was located 5 miles north of the Minneapolis Central Business District, in St. Anthony Village. APACHE PLAZA was developed by the Minneapolis-based Apache Corporation and designed by Willard L. Thorsen, of Thorsen & Thorshov, Incorporated.
NORTHPARK CENTER TENANTS 1965:
TITCHE-GOETTINGER (with Granada Restaurant and freestanding Auto Center) / NEIMAN-MARCUS (with The Little Mermaid Restaurant) / J.C. PENNEY (with Coffee Shop, Beauty Salon and attached Auto Center) / F.W. WOOLWORTH (with luncheonette) / American Express Company / Black Forest Bakery / Bombay Shop / Bond Clothes / Butler Shoes / Canterbury Shop / Card Corner / Card Shop / Carriage Shop / Centennial Liquors Mall Store / Chandler's Shoes / Coiffure Continental / Colberts / Commonwealth Club / Community Hall / Contour Chair / Cullem & Boren / Doubleday Book Shop / Dreyfuss & Son / El Fenix Restaurant / Florsheim Shoes / Freeman Shoes / Games Imported / Gittings N-M / Home Furniture / Hong Kong Fashions / Hot Shoppes Restaurant / House of Nine / I. Miller Salons / Jarman Shoes / John Bull Pub / Kinney Shoes / Leeds Ties / Lerner Shops / Linz Jewelers / London House Restaurant / Margo's La Mode / Marlowe Camera / Marriott Cafeteria / Vivian McNeil / Melody Shop / Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio / Milton's Clothing Cupboard / Mode O'Day Frock Shop / Murata Pearl / National Shirt Shops / Northpark Cinema I & II (outparcel) / Olan Mills Studio / Page Boy Maternity Shop / Pants Parlour / Parklane Hosiery / Paul's Shoes / Realife Vitamins / Red Cross Shoes / James F. Riggs Offices / Russell Stover Candies / Saybrook Fabrics / Seeburg Piano & Organ / Shaw's Jewelers / The Shoe Box / Singer Sewing Center / Stylish Stout Shop / SupeRx Drugs / The Swiss Colony / Texaco East service station (outparcel) / Texaco West service station (outparcel) / TSO (Texas State Optical) / Thom McAn Shoes / Toy World / WFAA studio-Dallas Morning News offices / Jas. K. Wilson / Woody's NorthPark Barbers / Zale's Jewelers / Zenith Cleaners & Launderers / Zinke's Shoe Repair
CONVENIENCE CENTER:
KROGER supermarket / Centennial Liquors Park Lane Store / NorthPark National Bank of Dallas