Andrew J. and Letitia Hosmer Home
162 South 1300 East in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Frederick A. Hale, a graduate of the architecture program at Cornell University and a prominent Utah architect between 1890 and 1934, designed the Craftsman and Colonial Revival style home at 162 South 1300 East for Andrew J. and Letitia Hosmer, and the Frank B. and Lumnette S. Stephens house at 169 South 1300 East. His commission, which included mansions along South Temple Street and downtown commercial structures, reflect his association with the city’s non-Mormon citizens who were influential in mining and business ventures. He used styles that were popular nationally, such as the Shingle and Queen Anne styles for residential properties and Beaux Arts classicism for institutional structures, thus contributing to the increasing urbanization that Salt Lake City and the rest of the state experienced at the turn of the century.

This house was designed by Frederick A. Hale for Andrew J. and Letitia Hosmer in 1908. Dr. Hosmer was a graduate of the University of Michigan’s medical school and established his practice in Utah in 1897. He became the senior surgeon at Holy Cross Hospital and was division surgeon of the Salt Lake Route. Overexposure through experimentation with x-rays caused him to lose his right hand. He developed a prosthetic hand device, the “Hosmer prothesis,” which enable him to work. The prothesis was later widely used by military amputees. Hosmer was also instrumental in establishing the first radium bank in the city. He practiced medicine in Salt Lake for forty years. The Hosmers lived in this house until 1937.