Back on the 80's this mall was amazing . Being a Tucson native I remember entering through the main entrance and seeing the amazing JCPenney façade in that beautiful bronze glass . I miss this mall so much .

That was the mall of my childhood in Tucson in the Seventies. In the Eighties there was a night club- Tequila Mockingbird. Some well known punk and other alternative bands played there.

I remember El Con Mall from my childhood! They had a kick ass arcade and a really cool fountain!

I used to work at the JCPenney!!! That was over 30 years ago. You have brought back memories. The ElCon Mall was awesome in it's day.

I was a student at the UofA from 1979 to 1983. I visited this mall many times. I didn't realize it was already gone. :(

The fenced-in area of the J. C. Penny used to be its garden center. El Con was the second, not the first, enclosed shopping mall in Tucson. Campbell Plaza was first.

I visited El Con Mall many times over the years starting when I was a kid in the 1970's when it was in its heyday. JC Penney was the anchor store but there was also a Montgomery Ward at the east end of the mall. In the 70's there was an arcade called The Red Baron (later called Gold Mine) which was a Pinball paradise. It really makes me sad to see the mall as it is now.

The most interesting feature, to me, about the old El Con mall was the decorative pattern that used to adorn the parapet around the Dillard's: it spelled "Shit" if you looked at it upside down. I had always heard that a designer, frustrated after his original patterns had been rejected again and again, submitted it as a sort of private joke not thinking it would ever end up being chosen. So of course, that was the one that ended up on the building.

5:41 I'm pretty sure that used to be an old garden center for JCPenney. I believe the older JCPenney stores always used to have them

Loved this Mall! The mall was sadly demolished in August or September of 2011. JC Penny’s just recently closed but I think the building is still there. Sad because my Mom said that was her 1st job back in 1977-1978. Also I remember Hot Sam Pretzels just to the right of the Mall side of JC Penny, The Pet Store, Taqueria Don Juan’s, Montgomery Wards, where my Grandma (My Mom’s Mom) worked. Love this video & the Old Casa Grande Outlet Mall. Already a subscriber. Keep up the great work!

I *love* that retro El Con sign!

That sign is amazing

awesome...I went to this mall a lot in 92-93 as teen....we lived on the air force base. Used to have an arcade and simulator motion ride ...first place I remember seeing Virtua Fighter arcade machine. they also had a baseball card shop on the outside and would occasionally do a card/comic show in the main aisle of the mall! Also use to hit the Montgomery ward and sears that was here. Place was jumping back in the day

I attended an early premier of Back to the Future III here at El Con when it came out. They had a guy in a Delorian make an appearance, plus they threw out a bunch of BTTF 3 pins, buttons, and badges. We always entered through the Montgomery ward and got a pretzel at the kiosk. Great memories.

I remember hanging around this place while the mall was in it’s death throes. It was eerie as hell seeing this white purgatory extend down either way.

The area with the broken mesh on the outside of the Penney's near the locked doors was at one time a garden center (plants, patio furniture, etc.,). Another great video.

The fenced area in the back was a garden center. Montgomery Wards also had garden centers and even sold above ground pools.

I only went to this mall a few times in the 90s as I ended up working at the Tucson mall & park place but I remember the parking lot as always being very crowded. Last thing I bought at El Con was John Madden football....on the ps1!

I remember going to this mall when it was a few months from closing and being shut down. The place was like a ghost town and with the white walls and skylights it felt like some kind of hallucination.

Hey man, I live in Tucson, thanks for making this. I’ve only been to the El Con Mall once in my life. I think I was 10 or 11. Even then there wasn’t much to it. It was real empty. I remember there was a toy store in it, probably KB. I remember going to it and looking at all the N64 games for sale.

Yes! I was hoping you'd check out El Con.

I spent so much time in this mall growing up. I will say that you got some of the history wrong. El Con was built on the sight of the El Conquistador hotel. It wasn’t near it. Also the El Conquistador still exist. It was moved to the foothills. It’s a 4 star Hilton hotel and Golf course. Also Dillard’s purchased Goldwaters. I was friends with Thai Goldwater , one of Berry Goldwaters grandson

El con actually has some great stores now...burlington, marshalls, ross, target, wal mart, a cinema n more

I wonder if having a basement made the store easier to keep cool? I visited ElCon once or twice as a kid... the problem was Tucson Mall was closer for Sears and JC Penny. Park Place also took a lot of business from El Con.

You ask what that back area of JCP was? From experience, it was probably the lawn and garden department back when the chain carried those lines - Penney had different levels of store that were each merchandised for the area they were in. For instance, did you know that JCP in Oklahoma had saddles for your horse available at one time? That there used to be a sporting goods section that drilled bowling balls and carried long guns? I remember those things because I worked at JCP while in high school in the 70s.

The El Con Center Burlington Coat Factory store was formerly Goldwater's, which was incorporated to the mall in 1978. By 1989, Goldwater's became Dillard's, which later closed in 2000, finally replacing it with Burlington nine years later.

The JCPenney at my local mall has a ground floor and a basement. Weird story: JCP wanted to expand so they built a new store _behind_ their original 1-level store, which became home to smaller stores and the new food court. But the new JCP was on a hill, so the rear exterior entrance goes to the basement while the mall and side exterior entrances go to the main level.

I miss ElCon. They used to have an arcade and a good food court, plus a good mix of stores. I never spent a lot of time in malls as an adult, but they were convenient.

El con used to be the BEST

Talk about your vintage JcPennys store. I have never been inside a department store that had a basement like that place did never knew they built stores like that just seems a little odd to me but anyways great video as always thanks

I used to go here all the time in the 70's and 80's. It had a unique character.

I really don't understand why outdoor shopping centers are so popular here, especially during the summer. Are you planning on doing videos of any similar places, like Camelback Colonnade? You should have a dead mall enthusiasts meetup for people in the Phoenix area!

The mall in my area was a dead mall in the early 2000’s. It was built in the 1950’s with a single floor. It was very popular that a second floor was added in the 1960’s. In 2005 the mall was updated and it came back to life. The stores started to come back and people came back. And now you can barely walk through it right now. They have updated it again to keep people to come.

I remember visiting El Con a few times. Yeah, it was super dead. I only saw like a handful of people inside any time I went. My sister and I went to a little store where they sold cheap women's clothing. It was one of the only stores that were open near the end.

When El Con was built, it was an open-air "shopping center". That was still true when I moved to Tucson in 1978. Penney's doors to the south led to the outside, the "malling" occurred sometime later in conjunction with a new store building which I think shows in your video as "Dillards/Burlington Coat Factory". My own recollection is that that particular building was built as a Goldwater Department Store. As far as Penney's and their "Now Selling Appliances", it's a return of something they did years back. When I bought my new house in '78, I bought the washer and dryer at Penney's. The appliance department at that time was in the northwest corner of the ground floor. Also bought all the curtains, drapes, rods, etc. from whatever the department was called. That department took up a lot of the space in the basement.

Great job. I really enjoyed your video documentation of these old malls. As a teenager I grew up going to the mall (in the 90's) as a social outing. Seeing the decor and everything, it really brings back memories and nostalgia.

I am a first time shopper at this mall from 1960 or 61. Was there at the grand opening. Biggest shopping thing I had ever seen in those days. Lived in Tucson at the time. Loved it.

I used to build bikes for Huffy. They would send me to various department stores to build for them. One morning I was sent to the K Mart in the Gallery Mall in Philadelphia. Took an elevator down several floors. Led down dark concrete walled corridors to the stock area where I was working that day. That was super claustrophobic!

We drove into Tucson every now and then when I was a little kid so I could ride on the "moving stairs". First Mall I ever went to.

I remember going to this mall many times! And I also remember watching it get torn down. Now it's more of an outdoor shopping center. I always liked the way the interior looked with the pillars inside and the up lighting. Now all Tucson has left is the Park Place mall and the Tucson mall.

I used to work in the mall at Thom McAn (store 1587) and then at JCP. The gated area of JCP used to be the garden shop back in the mid 80's

My elementary school choir performed at El Con mall a few times in the food court in 2001-2003. I vaguely remember the food court (which was added in the late 90’s) having lots of natural light. It’s depressing knowing all that doesn’t exist anymore...

I was raised in Tucson, I remember going to Elcon Mall as a kid. I was really sad seeing it die like it did and seeing most of being torn down. Back in the 80's it was amazing. Have really great memories of going there on the weekends with my family.

Most former Hudson's stores in the Detroit area had basements, as well as second and even third floors. Today, they are either Macy's or closed. The ones that are open don't seem to use the basement anymore except for perhaps storage.

If you ever do another trip to Tucson, please cover Broadway Village It has been in continuous operation since 1939.

I grew up next to this mall. It was originally an open-air mall, and I had a morning paper route when I was in high school, and delivered papers to a few of the businesses there. I would then ride my bike through the mall, scavenging ICEE Bear points from discarded cups (which I never did redeem for the beach towel I wanted). They later converted it to an air-conditioned mall, which I remember being jam packed with people during the holidays (I have an old home movie of following a friend through the crowd), and I spent a lot of quarters at the Gold Mine arcade. Last time I was there, the mall was pretty much empty. Now it's pretty much just big box stores, like WalMart, Target, Home Depot, and a few stores nestled in between.

Oh thank you for this video . I grew up shopping with my mom in ELcon mall well all the malls in Tucson . We had so much fun tougher. It’s hard to find many pictures of the Tucsons malls from the 80s . Ty again . ♥️🙏

Really stoked I found your channe! I used to work at El Con! Hot Sam Pretzels next to JCPenney! Lots of memories... I remember walking through the mall long after I had worked there, prior to when it was converted to the open air style. It was so ghostly... the phantom mall music playing in the background. Thanks for creating this channel! Very cool!!!

I remember El Con from the 60s. It was originally an outdoor mall!

I remember they remodeled El Con Malls food court and it was never used because all of the stores has gone away when they wanted to revamp that mall. I’m telling you Foothills mall is next. That mall is dead and has only a couple stores that are left inside. Malls are just not what they use to be, big stores keep pulling from them!

Tucson has a tendency to use old buildings instead of tearing them down and building new ones.

Wow!! Where all that open air space and the area, now paved parking, of the theater, was all mall back in the 70's through the time when Wards was demolished and the target was built. The mall section stretching north from wards, now target, had a bar called tequlia mocking bird. Many a good time there!!!

Thanks nice work!

Last Sunday's (09/18/2020) closure of this JC Penney spelled the end for the original El Con Mall I grew up with & loved. At one time the north entrance to Penney's had a restaurant that served good homestyle meals such as fish & chips or roast beef & potatoes. The mall itself held countless memories, including the upstairs Territorial Room with its 'Million Dollar View' of the Catalinas & waitresses who brought crayons for me to color the children's menu during family lunches. The surrounding big-box stores, such as Walmart & Home Depot, are fine in their own right, but my guess is that 90% of customers will never know what a glorious mall once stood there. RIP El Con.

Penney's had lawn mowers, garden tractors, rakes etc. They had paint and hardware into the 1980's and had appliances before too.

Why doesn't some upstanding security guard in these malls start video documenting! Talk about a missed opportunity from the inside. There is a video on yt from the 90s where a security guard did just that and it's fantastic! After hours and had the whole mall to himself and a extensive history of it. The mall is gone now too. Edit I found the video : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aZeFnLpzmpysZGw.html

you can tell how close a retail place is to folding by assessing the ratio of selling space to product, and that penney's is going down (especially if that shot of the loading area featuring no trucks was taken during business hours on a weekday). that much empty shelf space popping up during the shopping day means that corporate isn't shipping overstock. they're not expecting to sell enough product to require a restock before the next rotation, and that might not even be daily (especially, like i said, if that shot of the empty loading dock was taken during business hours). i wouldn't be surprised if that store is hemorrhaging money and the operators are just waiting out the last few years of the lease so they can vacate free and clear. if they took a fifty year lease in the 1970's (and they would because they're penney's. they wouldn't have expected to not still be here), that should be coming up pretty soon.

The IN-N-Out there is the one I went to the most in Tucson. But I never did live there when the original was around.

El Con was pretty dead when I was going to UofA in the late 90s/early 00s. Dillard's was already gone and Ward's had already gone BK. Anything on that side was pretty deserted. Closer to the Penney's or Robinson's was still a little bit active. The only reason I ever went was to get my haircut at the barber shop by the Robinson's. Kinda surprised that the final demolition only happened a few years ago.

The Penney's near me has both a Salon and an optical and the store was built along with its mall in the late 90's. The mall is Provo Towne Center located in Provo Utah

The basement level of my old Pennys was always neat, going down it was pretty awesome. Lower ceilings, they pretty much had childrens, large women and lingerie in the dungeon, top floor was always much nicer and busy.

So sad :-( I grew up in Tucson, while most of my memories are of the Tucson Mall, I have vague memories of El Con, my grandpa worked as a a salesman at Montgomery Wards... I'm not sure but it might have been the one at El Con.

I remember when this mall was still indoors. it was pretty much dead by the time I was a teenager

Haven't seen a basement like that since the 80s.

Cool vid! I grew up in Tucson, not far from El Con. I have seen a lot of stuff "Morph" here, and all over. I have a great foto album in my mind! Lol! Thanks and keep the archaeology coming!!

Just to correct you on a few things. The hallways in the mall were demolished on September 21, 2011. The Hallways were turned into sideways. In March of 2014 a different company took ownership of the place. The name was changed from El Con Mall to El Con Center. The mall started to go downhill starting in 1997 after the first movie theater closed. In 1999 the new movie theater opened. There were dozens of meetings with the neighborhood and the Tucson City Council. The city did everything they could to try and save the mall dozens of times. The nearby neighborhood never wanted bigbox stores to move in and make a lot of noise and bring a lot of traffic. In 2010 & 2011 my church Calvary Chapel of Tucson tried to buy the mall. It would have been one of the largest churches in America. It would have cost way too much to remodel and turn into a church. A few other churches in Tucson agree to partner with us. They agreed to close their churches and we would all become one super mega church.

I remember going to this mall a few times a few years ago and thinking “this would be the perfect set for an apocalypse movie or horror movie”.

I love the sign!

Back of Penny's used to be automotive and bikes, lawnmowers, etc.

Hey! if your reading this, thank you :). El Con Mall use to have a Goldwater's that opened in august of 1978 but the Goldwater's close in 1989, and re-open as a Dillard's in 1989, but it close in 1999 and moved to park place in 2001. And El Con Mall use to have a Macy's but in the 70s it was a Levy's that opened in Sept. 15, 1969 but in the 80s or 90s it re-open as a Macy's but it also closed in 2008 and got demolished. Oh by the way, the Century El Con 20 use to be a AMC El Con 6, it was opened by TM Theatres in August 16, 1979 but in September 1, 1997 it close, and replaced by Century El Con 20 -Azimaiz

Some of the bricks from the old El Conquistador resort were used to build my neighbor's house in 1968.

If you're interested, there used to be a large shopping mall in Portland, OR that was torn down a few years ago. It was the Jantzen Beach Center, just off I-5 on an island in the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver, WA. It originally opened in the 70s, but two-thirds of the mall was torn down in 1995/96. The remainder of the mall was converted into an open air shopping center in 2012. I went there just a few months before it was torn down (and a few times as a child as well). There was a historic carousel inside the mall that was a relic from an old amusement park on the site, and it's currently in storage somewhere. If you're willing to do documentaries on sites outside Arizona, it might make a good topic for a video.

i only went into the el con mall once before it was torn down and stuff. i was disappointed that there was no KB toys lmao.

"1970s era JC Penney" is redundant.

i use to work for Penneys for over 15 years and this Penneys is pretty much fully updated. not old inside.

I remember this mall from the 90's and early 2000's and the remodeling of its façade to a mission stile entrance. I have cool memories of it from when I was a child, and I think I read that before becoming a mall this place was a hotel opened in the 20's called "El Conquistador" (hence the shortened "El CON"). Great video.

I grew up in Michigan. Many of the major department stores had basements, both those initially downtown and later in the suburban malls. But then, basements are very common in Michigan.

El Con, that's just where I go to Walmart, Home Depot and Target now. Whether it's a mall or a big box center, they all fail in the end. They tried to replace the traditional main street, but the main street will win in the end.

I live in Tucson and the JC Penny just closed like a year or 2 ago sadly.

Actually the mall was built in the late 60's, around 1968 as I recall. El Con, was then just a couple of stores and a grocery store (Bayless?) then they built the mall around it. I remember using the pay phone booths in the pouring rain and later they were almost in the center of the mall. That basement is similar to the one in the Sears at Park Place (formerly Park Mall) In the late 60's, Park Mall, down the street was only the Sears Store and a Furr's Cafeteria. They built the mall around them. I haven't shopped in a mall in probably 8 years other than the Home Depot at El Con. Maybe 15 years ago before the did all of the remodeling at El Con, my wife and I attended a Paul Revere and the Raiders and Kinks concert in the huge empty parking lot. I remember Paul Revere joking about how far their careers had come, being reduced to performing in a shopping center parking lot! Update: It was AJ Bayless. I remember using a carousel of 6 payphones in the parking lot around 1960 or so in the rain. Later on when it became a mall. those same payphones were somewhere in the middle of the mall. I had a sister-in-law that worked for JC Penny and I bought my first VHS video recorder there in 1974 for $1024. I used to shop at Penny's all the time and bought many pairs of "Plain Pockets" and corduroy jeans there. It was sad that they turned it into basically a glorified strip mall. The original El Con was a dude ranch that was very popular among the Hollywood crowd and many stars stayed there. The original water tower across the street is now a historic monument. There was an AMC or Mann theater there and my wife and I went there often. I think that is where we first saw "Star Wars!"

Such a cool mall back in the 90s. There used to be a Foley's with a restaurant there and the food was good. Also a Tequila Mockingbird in the back (north part of the mall). Good times

It was way before 2015 withbit became a open air mall. It was remodeled in the early 2005 and above

The biggest hudsons bay in my city is very old, one of the oldest and the building is a heritage building...there are 5 or 6 floors and the basement is so. creepy. The escalator is red and chromed gold (!!!), and very narrow, and the basement is quite dark with a lot of weird empty corners....they always put the christmas decorations in the back basement and it's entirely empty, with eerie echoing christmas music and like...dank lighting. Also the watch repair is down there, so you have to go down and it's busy by watch repair and the escalators and really really empty everywhere else. They also have a top floor of lingerie that is the size of a warehouse and so tall and empty and white. And on the 3rd floor there are bathrooms that are entirely marble with chrome caged lighting and tons of mirrors and they are beautiful.

The Burlington Coat Factory there used to be a Goldwater's, which opened in August 1978. That Goldwater's became a Dillard's in 1989. Dillard's closed in 2000 when they opened a new store at nearby Park Place.

Now that JCPenney is permanently closing 🥺

My mom grew up on Tucson in the 60's, abd we always shopped at El Con when we were kids. I also used to work at the Wal-Mart that was built where Macy's used to be when it opened in 2013. The original indoor parts of the mall were torn down around 2010, and the theatre was remodeled, but it was there before the open concept. Ross and what became Shoe Carnival were suites that were in the original mall, hence the front and back entrances that face JCP.

this all sounds like what Florin mall was here in sacramento, CA. all they did was demolish the mall parts but keep the Sears.

The lighting has been updated at least the defusers because the 3 \6\9 ice tray like defuser was a 1990's thing. When that JCPenny's was built they would have had the milky cracked ice defuser. That and a very bad paint job was the limit of the remodel looks like.

I worked in a Penney's that had a basement, 3 floors, a salon and custom window treatment and bridal shop! (Really early 80's).

Shame that the old mall is gone, but at least it got recycled into something useful.

The original large building was the luxurious El Conquistador Hotel when Tucson was a Hollywood movie production center. East of town the original set for the B&W movie Arizona was built. Tucson is still a retirement area for movie and entertainment people. They can pretty much live normal lives. When the movie industry faded so did the Hotel. The architectural elements were sold off to the locals and the building torn down with the new enclosed mall built over the old site. Residents of that era remember it well. This new mall drew customers and retail stores away from the old main retail shops in downtown Tucson. This new mall was closer to where the residents were expanding. With the increased expansion and many newer malls and retail centers built the El Con mall began to lose business and shops. The new open air buildings are functional and seem to stay alive, but I've no interest in them.

I totally was listening to Silpheed at work today. Keep up the good work!

This place has been dead for a long time. Even back in the early 2000's there wasn't much going on for El Con.

I visited Elcon once in the spring of 2000 if my memory serves me. I didn't stay long. The place was obviously on the way out. Trash was literally strewn around the floor. Hamburger wrappers and packing material.

El Con (short for "conquistador") had the absolute best arcade in town in the 1980s- I would routinely ride my bmx about 8 miles each way to spend the afternoon there. They also had an awesome ice cream shop called Farrell's in the 1970s which had an incredible ice cream sundae which was so big that 2 guys would carry it out on a stretcher!

So Depressing.....

I remember when it was just one block and all you could do was walk forward into JCPenny.

This Is Dan Bell's Weird Obsession: Plants and planters (biggest peeve: Spanish moss inside the planter!); Retail Archaelogy's Weird Thing: Air Diffusers!

I have not been inside that JC Penney in over 15 years, still looks the same.

Fun fact, the Walmart which was a former macys which was a former levy’s has a hidden naughty word in the architecture