A brief history of the Layton Hills Mall -- Layton City's retail catalyst

LAYTON City has become a regional shopping and retail center and much of the credit for that success is the Layton Hills Mall.

The Mall officially opened on May 15, 1980 along Hill Field Road and ignited retail and restaurant growth around it. The Layton Hills Mall property was for many decades owned by the Marion Mark and Mary Ellen Bennett Whitesides family of Layton and their descendants.

The original Whitesides were a pioneer family who initially  took up residence in Kaysville in 1858. They eventually built a home on Fort Lane and moved to Layton and acquired farming land where today’s Mall is located.

During the early 1940s, some of the future Mall land was used for a government trailer park to house Hill Air Force Base workers. These small trailers were only 8 feet by 12 feet and their bathroom and laundry facilities were elsewhere on site and used by groups of trailer residents.

After the War, other housing became available and the trailers were removed. A 10-home housing development was then built where the trailers used to be and two short-lived Layton roads there, Idaho and Montana streets, were constructed to access the homes.

In 1966, developers purchased 15 acres nearby for a possible future “convenience center.” This was envisioned as a grocery store, home center and as many as a dozen small retail stores. That project never happened, but by 1977, construction on the Layton Hills Mall had begun.

Anchored originally by ZCMI and Aurbach’s, the 55-acre Mall cost $20 million and required 3 ½ years to build. Aurbach’s had opened almost a month earlier than the rest of the Mall, on April 23, 1980.

When the overall Mall opened on May 15 of that year, it featured 60 stores and some 350 employees. The Mall had also featured other non-existent stores today, like The Bon, Wolfe’s and Castleton’s.

A number of other stores opened along the “Ring Road” surrounding the Mall, like Ernst Home Center, Video Sorcerer and Safeway Grocery Store. Sizzler Restaurant was also along the outer road.

The Layton Hills Mall as a centerpiece also eventually led to Layton’s “Restaurant Row” to the north, as well theaters and other businesses in the area.

-EVER-CHANGING RETAIL SCENE: Of the 78 businesses listed in a Layton Hills Mall directory of 1984 (including businesses on the Ring Road around the Mall), only 14 of them, of 18 percent, remain there as of 2017, some 33 years later.

SOURCES: Utah Digital Newspapers, Davis County Clipper Archives and Deseret News Archives.