Was Charleston Plaza the first mall in Las Vegas?
When Glynis Ladd Sterling moved to Las Vegas in 1964 the Charleston Plaza was the place to be.
“It was brand new, and we lived in the Huntridge area, and that was just up off Maryland Parkway and East Charleston,” said Ladd Stirling, now 73, who was in eighth grade at the time. “Everybody shopped down the street at the Charleston Plaza Mall, and it was a big teenage hangout on the weekends, especially Friday nights and Saturday nights.”
Opening in 1963, pre-dating the Boulevard Mall by around five years, the Charleston Plaza, located on East Charleston Boulevard has mostly been lost to history — existing in the minds of those who lived to experience it.
But, was it the first mall in Las Vegas? It’s up for interpretation, but many locals of the time would say yes.
History
Little is publicly available about the mall, but its history starts in 1959 when a Thriftimart and Skaggs Drug Center were the first to open on the 30-acre lot, according to Mall Hall of Fame. By 1961, famous Las Vegas developer William P. “Bill” Peccole made it into a strip mall, adding new stores like S.S. Kresge.
In 1963, the Charleston Plaza was added to the south end of the strip mall, which was a fully enclosed, air-conditioned shopping concourse with around 184,000 square feet of leasable space. By 1965, it expanded to 320,000 leasable square feet with the addition of the Woolco.
Ladd Stirling recalled going to the mall to grab a slice of pizza and an Italian ice or walking across the street to the original Macayo Vegas.
“It was like $1 a slice,” said Ladd Stirling. “It was just a great place, because they had a wonderful indoor movie theater, indoor shopping, air conditioning.”
The mall wasn’t very large, with only around 20 to 25 storefronts and one-story, but she remembers it having a Woolco, a one-screen Fox Theater with all the hottest movies, a supermarket, a hobby store with LDS books in the back and Karl’s Shoes, which was owned by Debbie Reynolds husband at the time, Henry Karl.
When the Boulevard Mall opened in 1968, the Charleston Plaza paled in comparison to its over 1 million square feet of leasable space. By the early 80s, the Charleston Plaza was largely defunct and in 1988 it was demolished.
A shopping center still exists today on the site of the Charleston Plaza at 1720 E. Charleston Blvd., but all that exists in its place is a Ross Dress for Less, Dotty’s, Absolute Dental and a Del Taco.
“Sitting there today, it’s just shopping. It’s a parking lot, and you go in one building and come out and go into another building come out,” said Ladd Stirling. “It’s not an indoor mall. It’s not enclosed at all.”
Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.
