Raging Waters, a large water park in Salt Lake City, Utah later became Seven Peaks Waterpark and then closed down. I stopped by to get some photos and video clips and document it before it fades away.
While I was there I noticed the grass had just been burned, I didn’t realize it was only two days prior until I got back and looked the park up online and saw this article. It turns out just a couple of weeks later there was a fire in the office (see this article) so I’m glad I went when I did.
This is the old Salt Lake 31st Ward Chapel built in 1904. It was sold around 1986 at the same time the old LeGrand ward on McClelland Street was torn down and replaced with the current chapel.
Constructed in 1910, the Cornell Apartments is one of over 180 “urban apartments” built in Salt Lake City during the first three decades of the twentieth century, a period of unprecedented expansion and urbanization. Over 60 percent of those buildings are either listed or eligible for listing in the National Register. Urban apartments are significant under Criterion C as a distinct and important type of residential building in the city. Apartments are remarkably consistent with one another in terms of building plan, height, roof type, materials, and stylistic features. These and other characteristics mark them as a new and distinct type of early twentieth century residential building. Under Criterion A, urban apartments are significant for their association with the rapid urbanization of Salt Lake City during the 1890s-1930 period. The growth that took place during those decades spurred the construction of two opposing types of housing in the city: urban apartments and suburban homes. Suburban homes represent a rejection of urban conditions. Apartments, on the other hand, document the accommodation of builders and residents to the realities of crowded living conditions and high land values. They were a significant new housing option that emerged in response to the growth that transformed Salt Lake City into an urban center during the early twentieth century.
Constructed in 1910, the Cornell Apartments are a three-story brick building with a parapet roof, brick foundation, and modest Neo-Classical Revival/Colonial Revival styling. Ho significant alterations have been made to the building. The Cornell is a variant of the “walk-up” type apartment building. The basic walk-up contains six units, is three stories in height, one apartment deep and two units in width across the facade. It has a central entrance/stairway with two apartments opening off each landing. That basic plan is doubled on the Cornell; in essence the building is two walk-up apartments with a common side wall. Thus, the building is a narrow rectangular building with its broad side facing the principal street. The facade is symmetrical except for the northernmost section, where there are no windows on either side of the porches- -the lot was simply too small to accommodate those two bays on the facade. Instead, the apartments there protrude to the rear in order to provide living space of comparable size with the other units in the building. There are projecting, three-story front porches with classical columns and pedimented roof. On the rear there are frame service porches connected by open walkways and stairs. Some of the windows in the service porches have been covered with plywood, but they are essentially unaltered.
The building permit for the Cornell Apartments was issued on July 15, 1910, to W.C.A. Vissing, one of the most active developers of apartment buildings in Salt Lake City during the pre-World War I period. The estimated cost of the 13-unit building was $25,000.
Vissing acquired this property in January 1910 from the Loraine Investment
Company in exchange for the Arlington Apartments, located at 415 First Avenue.
As part of that deal he also obtained property at the corner of 800 East and 100 South where he built the Bernice Apartments in 1912.1 The Bernice and Cornell apartments are almost identical, though the Bernice has been altered in recent years.
Visaing owned this building for only a short time, selling it 1912 to Blanche Castleman for $32,000. The building changed hands four times over the ensuing decade before being purchased by Jacob Bergerman in 1923. It remained in the Bergerman family through at least 1934.
W.C.A. “Andy” Vissing constructed at least 20 major apartment buildings in Salt Lake City during his career. Born in Denmark in 1874, he emigrated to the U.S. and Salt Lake City at the age of fourteen. He started in the construction business as a young man and continued until his death in 1936. He is credited as “one of the first local apartment house builders.” He constructed some of the largest apartments in the city, including the Hillcrest, Buckingham, Fairmont and Commander apartments. The first apartments he is known to have constructed were the LaFrance Apartments in 1905. That was also the first of several apartment projects in which he was involved with Covey Investment Company, another major developer and owner of apartments in Salt Lake City. Vissing was primarily a contractor, not an apartment manager, so he usually sold his apartment buildings soon after completing them in order to finance the construction of new apartments.
The Christmas lights at Temple Square are a popular thing in December in Utah, I try to stop by to document them every year – see other years here.
The word is that it won’t be happening the next 4 years for renovations to happen to the Temple and Temple Square, if that’s the case I’ll add to the list again in 4 more years.
The Old Meeting House is a well known meetinghouse turned reception center in the Millcreek area of Salt Lake City, Utah. It is to be demolished for townhomes soon so I wanted to document it to be able to look back on.
4120 Highland Dr, Salt Lake City, UT 84124
Historically it was known as the Winder Ward, the first part was built in 1905 and the expansion was finished in 1933.
I saw some interesting facts posted online by Natalie Brown, the manager of the event center the building currently funtions as.
In 1904 William Wallace Casper donated an acre of his land to the L.D.S. Winder Ward for their new chapel. As was the case then, the members were responsible to build and pay for their buildings. Although unfinished they held their first meeting on December 3 1905. Finally finished, on the 1st of July 1906, the First Presidency of the L.D.S. Church was in attendance and congratulated the the people on the completion of their chapel. The custom then, as now, was to defer dedication of the building until it was paid for. That day came on September 1, 1914.
The building was closed for 3 months the winter of 1918 due to an outbreak of Influenza.
There is a canal just west of the parking lot called the “church canal” it was originally built to carry stone from Little Cottonwood canyon to the site of the Salt Lake Temple.
An addition of north and south wings, a theatre built in the basement and a face lift on the outside all took place between 1924 and 1931.
In June of 1939 the chapel ceiling collapsed, destroying chandeliers and damaging benches but they remodeled and the building was rededicated in December of 1939 by L.D.S. Church President Heber J. Grant.
In 1940 a pipe organ was installed.
In 1942 the orchard land to the south was donated for more parking.
In 1958 the theatre was turned into a multi-purpose room.
In 1976 they held the last and final meeting before it was sold. In 1978 Sandra Gardner, looking for a venue to hold her daughters wedding reception, met the owner and discovered he was looking for someone to run it. She decided to give it a try. Sandra and her husband eventually bought the business and later the building.
The Best-Cannon house is an excellent example of a Queen Anne Victorian cottage in Salt Lake City. It was designed by the firm of Monheim, Bird and Proudfoot, architects for the Salt Lake City and County Building, and built in 1893 by W.A. Wright for Elliot M.S. Best and his family. Best, an agent for the Morse Coe Shoe Company, built the west addition in 1897 for a cost of $85 as a dance studio for his daughter. The Bests lived here until 1906 when Angus M. Cannon, Jr., and his wife, Kate Lynch, bought the house.
Sampson and Altadena: 276 East 300 South & 310 South 300 East (1906)
The twin apartment buildings Atadena and Sampson were built in 1905 or 1906 according to different sources. They are listing on the National Register of historic places and were built according to Wikipedia by Octavius Sampson for $21,000.
