made naval aviation history when he took off from Tanforan and made a successful landing on the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay. This marked the first successful shipboard aircraft landing (and the second successful take-off). A plaque on the grounds commemorates this event. Tanforan was temporarily converted into a military training center during World War I. Tanforan Assembly Center During World War II, Tanforan was used as the Tanforan Assembly Center, an internment camp for Japanese Americans, nearly all from the San Francisco Bay Area. Tanforan was the second most populous of the 17 "civilian assembly centers" where internees were detained before being relocated to more permanent (and remote) "relocation centers;" most internees at Tanforan were sent to the Topaz War Relocation Center near Delta, Utah. Twenty-six of the 180 "apartment" barracks were converted from horse stalls. 8,003 people were held at Tanforan from April 28 to October 13, 1942, with a peak population of 7,816 in July. A plaque outside the mall notes this history. When the Assembly Center closed in 1942 the site became the US Army's Camp Tanforan. At the camp were the California Field Artillery Regiments. In 1944, the camp became the Naval Advance Base Personnel Depot, San Bruno, which closed on October 10, 1946. A number of soldiers who were once stationed at camp are buried at the Golden Gate National Cemetery, which is located on a nearby hill that overlooks the Tanforan site. After the war, Tanforan returned to its former role as a race track, with a golf course in the center of the track. The track went into decline in the 1950s due to competition from Bay Meadows, and then burned down on July 31, 1964. Shopping Mall In 1971, the Tanforan Park Shopping Center was built on the Tanforan racetrack site. The mall was designed by Victor Gruen Associates; the second floor was built as a mezzanine to allow a two-story ceiling above the center of the ground floor. Under the First Phase, the central mall and Sears store were scheduled for completion by February 1971. The mall was developed by The Hapsmith Company, led by Hap Smith and Frederick M. Nicholas, and built by Ernest W. Hahn, Inc. The two major anchor tenants in the First Phase were Sears with and J.C. Penney with . The First Phase also included of leasable area with space for 65 stores.