"Don't forget now: 1:15 am, Twin Pines Mall." —Doc on the phone

Doc Brown eased the venerable step-van onto the Twin Pines Mall parking lot shortly after midnight. There were more cars than he expected, so he pulled to the far rim of the asphalt area and waited. "Must be a long movie," he said to himself. " —From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, page 41)

A few minutes later, several dozen people emerged at once from the mall's interior and moved to their cars. A series of starting engines, blinking lights and squealing rubber enlivened the vast treeless plain for a few minutes. Then all was silence again. The faint smell of gasoline fumes hung in the thick air as the tiny specks of light disappeared into the morning darkness. In comparative solitude once again, Brown felt better. People made him feel vaguely insecure." —From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, pages 41 and 42)

" As they sped away in the step-van, the two men discussed their adventures. "I guess I did screw things up a little," Marty said at the entranceway to the mall. / "How so?" / "Well, this used to be Twin Pines Mall in the 1985 I knew first time around. But when I went back, I accidentally ran over one of the farmer's pines. I guess that's why they call it Lone Pine Mall now." / Doc Brown smiled. "You'll probably notice a lot of things like that," he said. "It'll be your own private joke with Hill Valley for the rest of your life." / "Yeah..." " —From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, pages 240)

Twin Pines Mall, later known as Lone Pine Mall, was a shopping mall where Dr. Emmett Brown chose to show Marty McFly the new DeLorean time machine he had invented.

History

At 1:21 a.m. on October 26, 1985, Doc's dog, Einstein, becomes the world's first time traveler leaving behind a pair of fire trails after the DeLorean accelerated to the necessary 88 miles per hour.

During the experiment, Doc showed Marty how the keypad and display works, inputting famous dates of the birth of Jesus Christ, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or 1955, when the concept for the flux capacitor was discovered. Doc then became nostalgic and imagined how much land could change in 30 years, recalling a time when the mall was nothing but open fields. He remembered how Old Man Peabody used to own the land on which the mall sat in 1985, as well as noting that Peabody bred pine trees as a hobby.

When Marty traveled to 1955, he accidentally ran over one of a pair of pine trees in Mr. Peabody's front yard when the shotgun-toting farmer opened fire on him, thinking the yellow-suited figure which had crashed into his barn was an alien disguised as a human. Subsequently, when Marty returned to 1985, there was only one pine tree on the illuminated sign at the mall entrance and, as a result, the mall's name had changed to Lone Pine Mall.

This was also an important location because it was where Doc was shot by Libyan terrorists until Marty wrote the letter forewarning of it in 1955. Although Doc tore up the letter on discovering it, he later stuck it back together with scotch tape, read it, and subsequently wore a bulletproof vest on the night of October 26.

A Fox Photo stand was located in the mall's parking lot — that is, until it unfortunately got in the way of the the Libyans' Volkswagen Station Wagon.

In the altered 1985, the mall was owned by BiffCo.

Note: The following section is considered non-canon or is disputed in canonicity.

In the 1986A timeline, the mall was again owned by the Tannens and named Tannenville Mall. According to the sign, the following services were present:

six casinos

fifteen bars

eight gentlemen's clubs[1]

Sometime in 1992, Walter Wisdom made a public appearance at Lone Pine Mall, which Marty and Verne Brown attended.

Non-canon or disputable information ends here.

Behind the scenes

The filming location for the mall was the south-east side of the Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry, California in eastern Los Angeles County next to the current Macy's anchor. The May store featured in the movie became Robinson's May in 1993 when JW Robinson's was acquired by May Corporation. The Robinson's May store in Puente Hills Mall later became Macy's in 2006 when Macy's acquired Robinson's May.

Colima Road, which is to the south of the Twin Pines Mall sign entrance, is recognizable and the Puente Hills Town Center in unincorporated Rowland Heights is also recognizable as well (though the stores featured at the center are no longer there).

Puente Hills Mall has had major renovation in recent years and consequently, is unrecognizable from how it looked in the movie. However, the parking lot remained largely intact. There is still black tape of some sort left on the parking lot, seeming to mark the fire trails and where Doc and Marty stood upon the first experiment. Three new anchors, Burlington Coat Factory, 24 Hour Fitness and Wells Fargo, were non-existent in the Puente Hills Mall when Back to the Future was filmed in 1984. The JCPenney store in the movie closed and was replaced by a Burlington Coat Factory store.

was filmed in 1984. The JCPenney store in the movie closed and was replaced by a Burlington Coat Factory store. At the beginning of the mall scene, a train can be heard in the distance, which indicates that the mall is next to the eastern spur of the railroad that leads to the Eastwood Ravine bridge in the third film. However, in real life, Puente Hills Mall is actually located next to a train track nearby across SR 60, which carries Union Pacific freight trains and the Metrolink transportation train.

Appearances

Twin Pines Mall. Futurepedia has a collection of images and media related to

References