Evidence of title and directory suggests this house was built in 1904 for Jacob Forsberry Gates and his wife Susa Young Gates and is significant because of its association with them.

Gates was born in 1854 in Salt Lake City to Jacob Gates and Emma Forsberry. When he was ten his family was called on the “Cotton Mission”. He served a mission to Hawaii in 1876-1879 and graduated from the University of Deseret in 1881. He served a second mission from 1885 to 1889 as superintendent of the LDS Church’s sugar plantation at Laie, Oahu. Upon his return he took up residence in Provo where he remained for twelve years as a furniture dealer and served two terms as a Justice of the Peace. From 1902 to 1903 he served a mission in the eastern United States. Upon his return, he “built with his own hands a house at 672 N 1st West where his family resided in Salt Lake”. He worked at this time as a insurance and real estate agent and in 1905 edited a new version of the Book of Mormon in Hawaiian. He served a mission to Germany, 1913-1914 and upon his return took up insurance again. He later became recorder at the Salt Lake Temple.

In 1920 Gates and his wife moved across the street to 709 N 200 West. This house remained in the family, passing to a son Brigham Cecil Gates and his wife Gwenneth G. in 1933. They held it through 1940. In the 1920 f s it was home to Mrs. Emma Lucy Gates, internationally recognized singer.

Susa Young was born 1856 in Salt Lake City to Brigham Young and Lucy Bigelow, The first child born in the Lion House. She attended the University of Deseret where she was associate editor of the “College Lantern”, one of the earliest college newspapers in the west, the beginning of an active literary career in which she wrote for and edited every publication of the LDS Church. She wrote four books, including a biography of her father, and was active in church press relations. She was especially interested in women in the church and their activities. She was the chronicler of the lives of many prominent LDS women, editor of the Relief Society Magazine, involved in national and international women organizations. She organized the music department of BYU in 1878 and in 1897 organized the domestic science department there. She was founder and for eleven years the editor of the Young Woman’s Journal, later merged with Improvement Era.

This two story square, hipped roof “box” style house has been extensively
remodeled. The hipped dormer centered on the hipped roof and the Tuscan porch supports are characteristic features of the style popular in the early twentieth century. The enclosure of the porch at the second story has greatly altered the original character.

Located at 672 North 200 West in the Capitol Hill Historic District in Salt Lake City, Utah.