The First Indoor Mall In America Is Right Here In Washington And It Has An Eerie History
If you’ve ever been to the Northgate Mall in Seattle, you’ve probably noticed… not much, because it looks like an ordinary mall. And it is perfectly ordinary in many ways, right down to the Auntie Anne’s pretzels. But the Northgate Mall was actually the first fully indoor shopping center in the nation (a decision made thanks to Seattle’s rainy weather), and that’s not even the most interesting thing about it.
By 1952, there were over 70 tenants.
And with a major renovation planned over the next couple of years, it's fun to look back on this mall's eerie history.
In fact, one night Ted Bundy actually helped a woman get her purse back from a thief by apprehending him in the parking lot. Ironically, he was called a hero by the police.
And Bundy stalked countless women from this very parking lot. In fact, the amount of time he spent on I-5 in that area was one of the things that later linked him to the murders.
In 1983, Tracy Ann Winston was abducted from the mall and murdered by Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. The, the following year, a white-supremacist group carried out a bank robbery there. Some even say this building is haunted.
Nothing can change its creepy past, but its future looks bright.
It’s worth noting that Washington might be the only state to have a mall that has an entire “Terrorists and serial killers” section on its Wikipedia page. We definitely live in a wonderfully weird place.
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