For over 100 years, the Kay Block (a.k.a. Kay Building) served as the home of many retail and professional businesses at this site, Ogden’s most prominent intersection. The building was constructed circa 1883 for Ogden businessman David Kay, and occupied this site until the construction of the Ogden City Centre Building began in 1989.

Kay received title to the property in 1883 from David H. Peery for a reported $3,125. The earliest business located in the building was Kay’s produce and commission store known as “David Kay Wholesale Groceries”. Kay shipped produce to Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and California. Later occupants of the building included severa real estate offices, fire insurance agencies, and starting in 1905, several drug stores which operated here through the 1940s.

The building type was a “one-part commercial block” which included Italianate architectural elements such as a bracketed cornice and round arch windows with decorative, eyebrow window heads. The Italianate style was popular into the 1880s in Utah’s architectural tradition.

There is a statue out front of Peter Skene Ogden as well.