I saw this cool looking building and from the architecture could tell that it was either an old school or church from the 1890-1910 date range and stopped to get some photos and video hoping I’d find out later what it was.
When I got home and started researching I found it that it is the old Scott School, built in 1890.
Some of the history of the site:
1847 – Log cabin for church, school and community.
Local carpenters and stonemasons constructed this building in 1893 to serve as a civic meeting hall. It was also used as a schoolhouse until the big school was opened in 1900. The simple forms, symmetrical facade, and Greek Revival style cornice are typical of nineteenth-century civic buildings in Utah. The building served as the city hall until 1988.
Located at 46 North Main Street in Spring City, Utah.
This is one of the few surviving vernacular civic buildings remaining in Sanpete County. Built in 1893 of oolitic limestone it is a temple form building with Greek Revival influence complete with a bell tower. The builders included masons: Jens D. Carlson (1848-1927), Jens. J. Sorensen , John F. Bohlin (1844-1924), and carpenters: William Downard and Marinus Mortensen. The building was used as a schoolhouse until 1900 when the large public school was opened. Two municipal bands used it as a practice hall. It served as the city hall until 1988 when this function was moved to the old Junior high school. It is now the D. U. P. Museum. Behind the building is an old jailhouse.*
The Crosby Memorial Presbyterian Church and School of Salina
Erected in 1884 as a memorial to Helen Rutgers Crosby of New York City, this church and school was one of several Presbyterian Churches built in central Utah’s Sanpete and Sevier valleys under the direction of Reverend Duncan McMillan, Presbyterian Mission Superintendent in Utah from 1875 to 1917. The chapel has been renovated by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Carter, in memory of Mrs. Carter’s mother, Mrs. Florence Mathew Gordon.
Located at 241 West 400 North in Payson, Utah, this park was built where the Wightman School stood and the plaque placed there reads:
Wightman School
Upon this site was once a private school and residence built circa 1883 by William C. and Lucretia J. Pepper Wightman. The school was built approximately 400 feet west of the northwest corner of the original fort and used to educate the children of early settlers in Payson.
When educational activities ended at the school, the structure was used as a residence until June of 2002. In August of 2003 =, the structure was demolished due to years of neglect and deterioration. This monument has been erected to remind all children that play in this park of the important role education has played in the history of the community.
The Oquirrh School, constructed in 1894, is significant as a representational example of the schoolhouses constructed as a result of the education reforms and development of the public school system that accompanied Utah’s campaign for statehood in the 1890s. Reforms include the consolidation of school districts, the adoption of a statewide curriculum and and the construction of numerous unified schoolhouses. The Oquirrh School was one of the first to be built and as such embodies the earliest ideologies and practices of public education in Utah. The Oquirrh School is also architecturally significant because it was one of the first public schools built in Salt Lake City and is an excellent example of late Victorian institutional architecture implementing a combination of the Romanesque and Second Renaissance Revival styles. The school can also be considered the work of a master, namely the regionally prominent architect Richard K. A. Kletting, who also designed several emblematic Utah buildings.
Built in 1928 at 1255 Park Avenue, this was Park City High School until the new high school on Kearns Blvd was built in 1981. This is now the city library.
During the 2002 Olympics the top two floors were Norway House, housing the King and Queen of Norway and many Norwegian athletes, officials and business people. A Norwegian restaurant and display area were open to the public. Next door in the Library Park monster.com built a giant snow maze for children.
Constructed in 1909, the Cedar Fort School is historically significant as the only remaining two-room schoolhouse in Utah County, and one of a small handful in the state of Utah. This building is a rare extant example of the many schoolhouses that were built in the twenty years after the state legislature created the Free Public School Act in 1890 for the purpose of greatly increasing the number of schools in the state. Architecturally, the school is important for retaining its distinctive character-defining features on the principle facades. Its Victorian Eclectic style combines a mix of Romanesque Revival (popular in the late nineteenth century for institutional buildings) and the then newly emerging Prairie School style. This mix of styles was quite common in the state during the first two decades of the century. The building particularly contributes to the town of Cedar Fort, Utah, which retains few examples of its historic architecture.
Built in 1935-36, the Hinckley High School Gymnasium is part of the Public Works Buildings Thematic Nomination and is significant because it helps document the impact of New Deal programs in Utah, which was one of the states that the Great Depression of the 1930s most severely affected. In 1933 Utah had an unemployment rate of 36 percent, the fourth highest in the country, and for the period 1932-1940 Utah’s unemployment rate averaged 25 percent. Because the depression hit Utah so hard, federal programs were extensive in the state. Overall, per capita federal spending in Utah during the 1930s was 9th among the 48 states, and the percentage of workers on federal work projects was far above the national average. Building programs were of great importance. During the 1930s virtually every public building constructed in Utah, including county courthouses, city halls, fire stations, national guard armories, public school buildings, and a variety of others, were built under federal programs by one of several agencies, including the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the National Youth Administration (NYA), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), or the Public Works Administration (PWA), and almost without exception none of the buildings would have been built when they were without the assistance of the federal government.
The Hinckley High School Gym is one of 233 public works buildings identified in Utah that were built during the 1930s and early 1940s. Only 130 of those 233 buildings are known to remain today and retain their historic integrity. This is one of 107 public school buildings that were constructed in Utah, 55 of which remain. In Millard County 10 buildings were constructed. This is one of 6 that remain, and one of 2 school buildings remaining of 5 that were built.
The Hinckley High School Gymnasium was built between 1935 and 1936. It was part of a larger Public Works Administration (PWA) project that the Millard County School District undertook that included, in addition to this building, a mechanical arts building at Delta High School and a gymnasium at Millard High School in Fillmore. Total cost for the 3 buildings was $130,000. Construction on all 3 buildings began in the summer of 1935 and was completed by June of 1936. The architects of all three were Carl W. Scott and George W. Welch, and the contractors were Talboe and Litchfield.
Carl W. Scott and George W. Welch were both prominent Utah architects. Scott was born October 17, 1887, in Minneapolis, Kansas, and graduated in 1907 from the University of Utah with a degree in mining. He was given credit for the idea of the concrete “U” on the hill that is still above the university campus. Following graduation he began a career in architecture as a draftsman for Richard Kletting. In 1914 he became partners with George W. Welch. Welch was born in Denver, Colorado, on May 15, 1886, graduated from Colorado College, and came to Salt Lake City to begin work as an architect. Active in political affairs while here, he was a member of the Utah House of Representatives from 1919 until 1921. Among the buildings that Scott and Welch designed were Salt Lake City’s Elks’ Club Building, South High School, the Masonic Temple, and many public school buildings throughout Utah including Hawthorne Elementary School and Bryant Junior High School in Salt Lake, Park City High School, Tooele High School, Blanding High School, and Cedar City Elementary School. They also designed a number of commercial buildings including the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company Warehouse, the Nelson-Ricks Creamery Building, and the Firestone Tire Company Building, all in Salt Lake City.
