Comments on: Carson Mall; Carson City, Nevada

By: Joe Toxic

Joe Toxic — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:17:09 +0000

Funny you mention Gottschalks. Born and raised in Fresno. Founded in Fresno and anchored many of the major malls and retail centers, did some expansion, but now in retrospect they seemed to pick malls that had seen better days. Gottschalks is gone; they should have stayed local or regional, sometimes trying to be bigger is not necessarily better. But yeah, I noticed Gottschalks on many of the malls out west. Cool site thoug.

By: cathy j.

cathy j. — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:35:49 +0000

Little correction about the geography of Carson City….actually Carson City is an independent city as a result of its 1969 merger with Ormsby County which was dissolved to become the “new” Carosn City so therefor Carson City isn’t a part of any county..like Baltimore, St. Louis and a number of cities in Virginia, though in the latter many of those cities are still considered “county seats. Yes Virginia has a number of county seats that aren’t located in the county they serve. Stupid? Yes it is but at least Carson City, St. Louis and Baltimore don’t fall into that category.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:25:47 +0000

@Rich, That’s interesting. What account did you hear that from?

By: Bobby

Bobby — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:53:46 +0000

@Sharon, Looks like the tail end of the former Wal-Mart building.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:01:40 +0000

1964 was the beginning of the full-line dept store era for Penney’s. By one account the first of their dept stores was at a small market mall in Indiana. In this case, perhaps this was an experiment for small markets in the West or a matter of space that became available because someone else bailed and they figured they could see how non-apparel would do and, if it didn’t do well, sublet.

By: Jonah Norason

Jonah Norason — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:08:10 +0000

….or Photoshop it. Makes me wonder about the Cinder Alley (Cinderella City Mall) sometimes.

By: Scott Schrantz

Scott Schrantz — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:41:33 +0000

@Jonah Norason, My camera wasn’t that great, but that’s about as dark as I remember it. It was a cave. With black ceilings even! I need to go back and rescan those photos from the original negatives to see if I can bring out any details in the shadows.

By: Jonah Norason

Jonah Norason — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:28:15 +0000

@Scott Schrantz, Wow, was it really that dark?

By: Bobby

Bobby — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:05:21 +0000

I’m guessing that the “other” JCPenney was originally the Safeway. I know I read something a long time ago that said Safeway was once in the Carson Mall.

By: Scott Schrantz

Scott Schrantz — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:56:52 +0000

@Dante, that entrance is actually where Gottschalk’s has been slowly spilling out into the mall. If you look at the picture, the Gottschalk’s entrance used to be flush with the outside door to the left. They pushed the floor space out about 30 feet into the mall. The space on the right used to be Miller’s Outpost, and Gottschalk’s took that over too. And they took over the hallway between the two stores, which used to go off to the right to another outside door. Now that door is just a display window. The entrance used to be more traditional before all this expansion.

The mall isn’t always dead. At Christmas it’s the only place in town you can go to see a mall Santa.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottschrantz/3129304310/