Day 4

6.7 miles

Great Mall of the Bay Area

Milpitas, Cal.

The Mall was formerly a Ford automobile assembly plant that was founded in the 1950s. Ford Mustangs were produced at this plant and Mustangs bearing the name San Jose as the assembly location were in fact built in Milpitas. Fairlanes, Torinos, Pintos, F-Series pickup trucks and Escorts; Edsel Rangers and Pacers; and Mercury Cougars, Montegos, Comets, Bobcats, Lynxes, & Capris (US version) were also assembled here. The plant closed down in 1983 in part due to increasing competition with Japanese auto manufacturers aptly narrated in David Halberstam's book The Reckoning. In the early 1990s, developers resized the former plant and converted it into a mall. Today, an oak tree with a plaque commemorating Great Mall's history stands in the southwest section of its parking lot.
The Great Mall of the Bay Area, which opened on September 22, 1994, was developed as a joint venture between Ford Motor Land Development Corporation of Dearborn, Michigan and Petrie Dierman Kughn of McLean, Virginia.