Fifty years ago this week marked a significant event for shoppers from throughout the area.

The Logan Valley Mall celebrated its “official” grand opening from June 7-9, 1967, with 22 stores at the time.

The Logan Valley Mall was the first enclosed mall built by Johnstown-based Crown American Corp.

The new mall was an attraction, drawing shoppers from more than 50 miles away.

“It was something new and something clean. You could park and walk into an enclosed mall. It was aesthetically attractive with a diversified number of stores. People could spend hours inside without going outdoors,” said Henry Weinberg, whose family owned The Colony Shop, which opened a store in the mall in 1969.

“Everybody I knew was going there to see what it was like. You could walk in and shed your coat. Everything was under one roof. You could even get your groceries there. I thought it was fabulous. There was such a variety; there was Murphy’s and specialty shops. It had a little bit of everything,” said Vicki Burk of Duncansville, whose husband, John, was an apprentice at the Mall Barber Shop when it opened Feb. 24, 1967.

Rumblings of a mall coming to Altoona began in December 1964 when Sears, Roebuck and Co. announced it had signed a lease for a new building at Route 220 and Goods Lane in what would be known as the Altoona Shopping Plaza. Construction was to begin in early 1965, and the store was to open in the fall.

The developer of the plaza was Penn Real Estate Co. of Johnstown, owned by Stephen J. Siciliano.

A few days later came an announcement about the new Logan Valley Mall. Siciliano said the new shopping center was to be the open mall type with more than 350,000 square feet of floor space and may eventually consist of 50 retail stores and service shops.

Crown Construction Co. of Johnstown was in charge of developing and building the center.

Weis Markets also had announced plans to open a 18,750-square-foot store in the center.

On Oct. 2, 1965, Frank Pasquerilla, president of Crown American, announced that the Logan Valley Mall, originally planned as an open mall shopping center, would be constructed as an enclosed, air conditioned and heated mall. In that announcement, Pasquerilla said the development would have about 35 stores with a total of 415,000 square feet of floor space.

The mall opened in November 1965 as an open-air shopping center with Sears, Weis Markets and a few small shops. In 1966, J.C. Penney was constructed, and the mall was enclosed.

Baxter Caldwell was hired as the first mall manager.

“In the beginning, malls were so new. The first three years or so, the effort was on getting people to come into the mall. The original ads were the blueprint of the design and layout of the mall to emphasize there were other stores inside,” Caldwell said.

Walking inside

to stores a change

“The biggest challenge was to get people to come into the inside mall stores. People would drive around to the back to get to Penney’s rather than walk through the mall. They didn’t realize they could walk through,” Caldwell said.

Caldwell was in charge of advertising and marketing and came up with the slogan, “For people like you, it is all in the mall.”

Businesses in the mall did well in the beginning, but the heavy traffic created congestion at Plank Road and Goods Lane.

“One time Joe Lynch (Logan Township police officer) was directing traffic near Goods Lane. He told people to stop. One lady didn’t stop and ran over his foot,” Caldwell recalled.

Numerous groups were invited to the mall to help generate traffic.

“We arranged to invite majorettes and cheerleaders from different schools to be mall hostesses. They stood at the doors, pushed open the doors to show people there were other stores inside,” Caldwell said. “We incorporated schools, Boy Scouts and charitable groups to do displays and fundraising to generate foot traffic indoors.”

The mall started an advertising pamphlet, which was distributed in towns such as Punxsutawney, Johnstown, Bedford, Indiana, State College, Lewistown and Cumberland, Md.

“The market evolved with advertising and direct mail. Since we were the only enclosed mall, that became our market area. That gave the mall a good base,” Caldwell said.

The mall became immediate competition for downtown Altoona merchants.

“Gable’s was the big draw. People came from distances to shop. The downtown was the big shopping community. When the mall went in, it was a threat to those businesses. You can now see the results,” Caldwell said. “An advertising manager for the Mirror told me we (the mall) would never be their bread and butter as far as advertising, that the downtown was.”

The Colony Shop, which had opened in downtown Altoona in 1951, opened a store in the mall in 1969 before closing its downtown store in 1970.

“We closed the downtown store because we didn’t have enough traffic. They were all going to the Logan Valley Mall. We saw a big decline in the store in Altoona,” said Weinberg, who became owner of the business when his father, Jules, retired in 1970.

The mall used various promotions to try to attract shoppers.

Caldwell remembers a back to school promotion in 1967.

‘Wooly Bully’

band a draw

“I arranged to build a 6-inch deep beach party where the theater is today. We put a flatbed truck in to serve as a stage; we had musicians and artists come in. We had seven or eight performers including Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs,” Caldwell said. Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs’ hit “Wooly Bully” hit No. 2 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart in 1965.

“We buried 50 $100 gift certificates in the sand, but nobody found any of them. They were so engrossed in the music and dancing,” Caldwell said.

The Mall Barber Shop, which opened before the official grand opening, struggled when it first opened, John Burk said.

“It was not that busy for us; we were slow. We had to build up the business. They wouldn’t let Tony (Turchetta, shop owner) put a barber pole outside,” Burk said.

The low point in mall history was a devastating fire that broke out Dec. 16, 1994.

The fire started in the rear of the G.C. Murphy Co. store. Virtually 20 stores between Sears and Penney’s were destroyed.

About 350 volunteer firefighters from 63 fire departments used more than 11 million gallons of water to battle the fire.

Fire­fighters approximated that the fire ignited in a utility room within G.C. Murphy. They believed the fire ignited combustible materials, such as the insulation adhesive, rapidly expanding the flames, according to a report from FEMA.

In January, Crown American unveiled plans for a new 145,000-square-foot Penney’s and a 157,000-square-foot Sears and a new multi-screen theater complex. Also included were plans for a three-level parking deck, which would accommodate 1,072 vehicles. The new mall plans increased the size from 827,000 to 969,000 square feet.

Crown American sold the mall to Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust in 2003.

Caldwell said he is proud of how the mall turned out.

“I am very proud to see how it continued and flourished. This mall has been well maintained and has always been very clean. We never had disruptions to shopping,” Caldwell said.

PREIT announced May 21 that the mall is being offered for sale.

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 946-7467.