The Park Hotel is significant for its association with the early 20th century development of Salt Lake City’s transportation and industrial district. Built immediately after completion of the nearby Rio Grande and Union Pacific railroad stations (both built in 1909-10), the Park Hotel provided housing and services for blue collar workers, many of them ethnic immigrants, employed in local transportation, manufacturing, commercial, and construction enterprises. Designed by Ware and Treganza, one of Utah’s most prominent architectural firms, and constructed in 1911, the Park Hotel was the first hotel erected near the Rio Grande Depot.
With shops and café on the first level and residential rooms on the second level, the Park Hotel was modest in size and design, yet it was one of the first one a soon-popular building type. Over the next few years, several other hotels were constructed to the east along 300 South, producing something of a “hotel row.” Following World War II the name was changed to the Rio Grande Hotel. It continues it s historic function as a single room occupancy hotel.
The William H. Culmer home was built in 1881. William and his brothers, George and Henry, immigrated with their parents from England to America in 1867. A year later they arrived in Utah. While still a boy in England, William became good friends with Charles Dickens. In the last years of his life, William Culmer wrote an account of his life as “one of the Dickens Boys.” This account was published in 1970 under the title Billy the Cartwheeler.
Located at 33 C Street in the Avenues of Salt Lake City, Utah and added to the National Historic Register (#74001935) on April 18, 1974.
In Utah, the Culmer brothers organized their own firm, G.F, Culmer and Brothers, and were successful in several areas: Wholesale and retail distribution of paints, oils, varnishes, window and art glass, manufacturers of mirrors and show cases; workers in art and stained glass, and manufacturers of galvanized iron work. In addition, they were officers and managers of the Wasatch Asphaltum Company which paved many of Salt Lake City’s streets; The Wasatch Marble Quarries, The Mountain Stone Quarries, and The Kyune Sandstone Quarry which produced the stone for several of Utah’s important historic sites including the Salt Lake City and County Building, the Cathedral of the Madeleine, and the First Church of Christ Scientist building in Salt Lake City.
William Culmer died in 1939 at the age of 87. During the period of much of Utah’s industrial development, he and his brothers played an important part.
Despite the importance of William Culmer the significance of his home is that it is a prime example of Victorian architecture and, most important, the art work inside the home was executed by his nationally known brother Henry Culmer.
Henry Culmer found the painting of Seccos and stencil work to be a relaxing weekend pastime.
The Culmer Home also represents a distinct period in Utah history. Built in 1881, it represents an intermediate period of luxury home construction. It was built between the earlier Bee-Hive House and Devereaux House, built by the ecclesiastical and economic leaders of the Mormon community, and the later period of mining magnate mansions at the turn of the century built primarily by non Mormons.
Though somewhat more modest than either the early Mormon mansions or later mining mansions, the Culmer home was built for one of Utah’s most prosperous businessmen at a time when the polygamy issue hampered this kind of construction for most of Utah’s devout Mormons and at a time when the mining industry was still in its infant stage.
The significance of the McDonald House lies in typifying the values of a middle-class newly emerged from the struggles to establish themselves in pioneer society. The simple dignity of the McDonald House suggests the residence of a hard working, upwardly mobile, skilled tradesman. The very plain house has few stylistically distinguishing details, and the central hall plan is a vestige of earlier vernacular house types. located away from the center of Salt Lake City, it documents the scattered pattern of settlement in the outlaying areas of the Salt Lake Valley. Although the Mormon Church dominated settlement patterns in Utah, the opening of a federal land office in 1869 brought the scattered homestead pattern to the state. The McDonald House exists today in the midst of later twentieth century development, an important remnant of early domestic architecture outside the immediate Salt Lake City area. The house has been carefully restored.
Related:
The home is located at 4659 S. Highland Dr. in Holladay, Utah
The architect-builders were the owners, David and Arabella McDonald, who lived in the building until their death in 1924. Both were immigrants to Utah in 1869, he from Scotland and she from Northern Ireland, and both were 41 when the home that was the measure of their success in America was constructed.
David McDonald had been educated in Scotland, and served five years of apprenticeship as a blacksmith and millwright. It was not until he was settled in Utah that he met his wife Arabella Anderson, whom he married in the Salt Lake Endowment House in 1874. David and Arabella remained supportive of the Mormon Church and its various programs, although his ambivalence about the Church was cause for comment. His membership in the largely Gentile Liberal party, and the broad and catholic selection of titles in his much-loved library suggest his distance from the mainstream of Mormon thought and practice. The McDonald blacksmithing business, located eventually only 50 feet from the McDonald home, prospered over the years. His increasing stature in the business community led to McDonald’s increasing involvement in politics. With the introduction of national political parties into Utah, he quickly became established as an active Republican.
At the death of both parents in 1924, the home passed into the hands of other members of the family and eventually was converted into a rental property in 1966. The home is now the headquarters of a professional design firm.
The Frederick Meyer House, built in 1873, is significant as one of the best examples of the Italianate architectural style in Utah architecture, and as the best example of one of three major house types used to express this important nineteenth century style. Utah’s Italianate, following a national trend for such houses, is found in three distinct forms: the large cross-wing house; the two story side passageway box; and the one story cottage. The Meyer House is the best example of the two story box type, and is one of only two frame examples of the type in Salt Lake City. The other is the Jonathan C. and Eliza K. Royle House located at 635 East 100 South. Frederick Meyer, a Mormon convert from Germany, was a salesman and eventually manager in the ZCMI clothing department. The Italianate style was made popular in the United States primarily by house pattern books, and became a common stylistic choice in Utah by the 1870s. There was great variation in the local expression of the style. Some houses, like the Albert Kelly House, 418 South 200 West, were simplified versions built for popular consumption in which only the basic form and the brackets on the cornice betray an Italianate aesthetic. At the other end of the spectrum is the Meyer House which displays all of the Italianate elements associated with Utah’s expression of the Italianate style. It includes the box form and side hall plan; the low hip roof with overhanging eaves; the wide cornice decorated with both paired and single wooden brackets; the projecting bays; the long, narrow double hung sash windows; and the classical detailing of the porch over the main entrance, of the window headers, of the projecting bay, and of the corners of the building. Of eight documented extant examples of the Italianate, two story box type house in Utah, the Meyer House is one of the oldest, and is the most architecturally distinctive, a fact borne out by its recording in 1968 by the Historic American Building Survey. It is one of three such Italianate houses which is eligible for nomination to the National Register. The William Morrow House, 390 Quince Street, the oldest example of the type, was listed in the National Register in 1982 as part of the Capitol Hill Historic District, Salt Lake City. Other Utah examples of the Italianate style listed in the National Register include: the Charles R. Savage House, 80 D Street (cross-wing type), and the Howe C. Wallace House, 474 Second Avenue (cottage type), in the Avenues Historic District, Salt Lake City; the Lewis S. Hills House, 126 South 200 West (cross-wing type), Salt Lake City; and the David McDonald House, 4659 Highland Drive (cross-wing type), Salt Lake City.
Frederick A. Eugelbert Meyer and his wife, Emelia C. Hannibal Meyer, had this two story, Italianate house built about 1873 and moved here from 51 East Temple (Main) Street. Frederick was a salesman in the Z.C.M.I, clothing department, where he had started working the previous year and where he continued to work until his retirement in 1909, serving as manager of that department from 1891 on.
Born in Schleswig, Germany on June 23, 1849, he came to Utah in 1862 with his mother and sister, all converts to Mormonism. As a young man he fought in Indian battles in Sanpete County, for which he received a medal of recognition for his service from the territorial government. Frederick served a foreign mission for the LDS Church from 1878 to 1880.
Mrs. Meyer, born in 1846, came to Utah with her family, also converts to the LDS Church, in 1853. She and her husband raised their six children in this house. Frederick lived in this house until his death in 1915, and Emelia lived here until just months before her death in 1918.
Emma Ramsy Morris and her husband, George Q. Morris, bought the house in 1918 and lived here until about 1929, when they moved into the Belvedere Apartments on State Street. Mrs. Morris, prior to her marriage, was an internationally known soprano who had made her debut at the Berlin Opera House with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. She also had performed for Kaiser Wilhelm in the Imperial Palace and for President Theodore Roosevelt in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She taught music lessons for a time in this house while living here.
George Q. Morris was the son of Elias Morris, founder of Elias Morris & Sons, stone and construction materials suppliers. That company, founded in 1860, is still in operation today. George became president of Elias Morris & Sons, and many years later, served as an a member of the Council of the Twelve of the LDS Church for seven years until his death in 1962.
In 1936 Clyde R. and Emma Stark bought the house. Clyde, a salesman, lived here until his death in 1981. Walter Wendelboth of Wasudak Investment Corporation is currently in the process of buying and restoring the house.
Located at 117 West 400 South in Salt Lake, The Summit Group has preserved the old vintage neon sign that was for United Electric Supply back in the 1950s. The lettering would light up alternating messages of “United Electric Supply” and “House of Service”.
Below are a couple of old photos I found online here and here.
Constructed in 1916-17, with an addition in 1924, the Mountain Dell Dam is significant in the history of U.S. technological development and in the vital development of Salt Lake City’s water resources. The dam was designed by John S. Eastwood, considered one of American’s most important and innovative hydraulic engineers of the early 20th century. Eastwood, the man most responsible for the development and utilization of the multiple-arch dam, built the first reinforced concrete multiple-arch dam with bedrock foundations in 1908-09; and in the following years that structural form was employed throughout America, Canada, Europe, and Asia. The multiple-arch dam was selected over other design concepts for Salt Lake City’s storage reservoir in Parley’s Canyon because the bedrock there is a calcareous shale which is not waterlight and tends to decompose, requiring a structure that would not be susceptible to overturning or sliding. John Eastwood was internationally recognized as the most prolific designer of multiple-arch dams in the world, having built 17 of his dams before his death in August, 1924, at the age of 67.
The dam was added to the National Register of Historic Places (#80003930) on June 20, 1980.
Salt lake City, located in the Great Basin of the American West, is dependent upon adequate supplies of water. As with other western regions, water conservation and use is of vital concern. In the early years of the 1910’s Salt Lake City found itself in a serious condition for the need of a sufficient water supply during certain seasons of the year, primarily in the late summer and mid-winter. A bond issue of 1914 resulted in a program of improvements which included plans to build a dam in Parley’s Canyon. In the field of community planning the location of the Mountain Dell Dam was significant because it’s location was so near the city (13 miles) that it could serve as an equalizing as well as a storage reservoir.
Three dam designs were considered, but the reinforced concrete multiple-arch dam by John S. Eastwood was chosen primarily because it was not susceptible to sliding or overturning in the bedrock of the Mountain Dell site. Eastwood’s design is important as one of the world’s first to realize the actual potential of reinforced concrete in the construction of dams and other structures which would have been difficult or impossible to build with other kinds of materials. “In the early 20th century, dam design was still dictated by principles essentially traditional in nature rather than scientific. In developing his multiple-arch dams, Eastwood employed a rigorous, scientific analysis in studying the problem of dam design and, consequently, he derived the reinforced concrete multiple-arch dam as the safest, most practical, most materially conversant and most economical design for almost all dam sites.” The material economics inherent in the design rendered the multiple-arch dam as significant in the development of the world’s water resources, and “more importantly, it demonstrated the capabilities and potential of reinforced concrete construction to engineers and industrial designers involved in all phases of structural technology.
Actual work on the dam began in 1916 by the Parrot Bros. Company. In August, 1917, the partial height of the dam was completed to 105 feet above bedrock Late in 1924 Salt Lake City decided to complete the final 40 feet of the dam, with the construction firm of Lynch Cannon Engineering being employed. Eastwood had drowned tragically in August, 1924, and as mentioned in Item 7, his design was somewhat altered by Salt Lake City engineers.
Mountain Dell Dam, when evaluated by the Historic American Engineering Record Survey in 1971, had a capacity of 1,145 million gallons, representing 65% of Salt Lake City’s water storage capacity. As with other Eastwood dams, the safety factors contended have been proven sound; and all of John Eastwood’s 17 dams, though some alterations have occurred, remain intact and functioning.
(info from Wikipedia) Jackson Square is an early subdivision of Salt Lake City developed by Kimball and Richards Land Merchants in 1909. The neighborhood’s boundaries are 200 East, 300 East, include Hampton Avenue, Kelsey Avenue, and Edith Avenue (today’s 1130 South, 1165 South and 1205 South, respectively).
Based on sketches and photographic evidence, the Jackson Square development once included 12-18 stone monuments which stood on each corner of the neighborhood. In 1909, Shipler Commercial Photographs captured images of Kimball and Richards workers clearing earth and building the stone monuments, including in the Jackson Square subdivision. These photos were also used in newspapers advertisements for Jackson Square.
The stone monuments included embedded Jackson Square name plaques, along with appropriate street name plaques on two sides. They were also capped with orbs. Today, only one monument remains standing; it is on the southwest corner of Edith and 300 East, though the original orb is missing. The base of another pillar can be found on the southeast corner of Hampton and 200 East.
The Isaac Chase Mill, located In Liberty Park, remains as the only grist mill on its original site built by the early pioneers in Salt Lake City. It was also the first mill in the valley to separate the flour from the shorts and bran.
The property, with springs of water, was deeded to Isaac Chase in 1847. He soon purchased another fifteen acres and eventually owned more than one hundred acres in the area. In late 1847, he built an upright sawmill to cut lumber for his home and mill. In 1848, a small crackling mill was built. hen, in 1852, Isaac Chase supervised the building of the “Chase Mill” and installed the irons and millstones his daughter had “freighted” to Utah when the family emigrated to the valley in September 1847. William Weeks was the architect. Chase later built a home nearby, which is still standing.
In 1854 Brigham Young, who had married Mrs. Chase’s daughter by a previous marriage, bought into the mill. The mill’s flour became extremely important during the famine period of 1856-1857. In 1859 Brigham Young Jr. was assigned to manage the mill. By i860 Brigham Young purchased Chase’s stock and assumed complete control. Chase moved to his adobe cabin on State Street where he died a year later.
The mill continued to be used into the 1880’s. About 1882 the location was purchased from the Brigham Young estate by Salt Lake City for “Liberty Park.” The mill was used as a supply shed for a number of years. Then, in 1896, a drive was made to tear it down; however, through the effective efforts of Kate Chase, a grand-daughter, support was marshalled to save it.
In 1927, the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, began negotiations with the city for its use and preservation, which they obtained under lease in 1933. They have used it as a relic hall and now open it to the public during the summer months.
Interest has been expressed at various times to restore it to operating condition, which now may become a possibility.
This site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 1970 (#70000627)
The Daughters of Utah Pioneers historic marker at the site reads:
The Chase Mill Built in 1852 by Isaac Chase, a native of New York State, who came to Utah in September 1847. His daughter Louisa drove the ox team across the plains which brought the mill stones and mill irons, which were used in the manufacture of flour. In 1854 Brigham Young became a partner with Isaac Chase, ad the mill was fitted out with improved machinery. During the famine of 1856-57 many families were furnished flour gratis, and the lives of many men, women and children were saved. Brigham Young acquired full possession of the mill in 1860, it ceased operations when the farm with its buildings were purchased by Salt Lake City in 1880.
