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Tag Archives: Sugar House

Sprague Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library

07 Monday Sep 2020

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Historic Buildings, Libraries, NRHP, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah

2131 South Highland Drive in Sugar House,  Salt Lake.

The Sprague Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library, built in 1928 by prominent local architects, Ashton and Evans, in the Jacobethan Revival style, is significant under Criterion A for its contribution as a community
and educational facility to the history of the Sugar House business district. The original Sprague Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library in Sugar House was established in 1914 and it is been an essential part of the
community life of the Sugar House area. This particular building has provided a community gathering place for the people of the area and is a local architectural landmark. For this reason it is also significant under Criterion C. The Jacobethan Revival style building is the best example of its kind in the district and one of the best in the entire city, and has been well maintained. It has recently (2001) undergone an interior renovation with a
sympathetic underground addition. However, the building retains its historical and architectural integrity. The Sprague Branch is being nominated as part of a multiple property submission, Sugar House Business District Multiple Resource Area under the context, “A City Within A City, 1910-1954.”

Related:

  • NRHP #03000637

The first Sprague branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library in Sugar House was located at 1065 (also 1085) East 2100 South (now demolished) in rented quarters in the center of the business district. Its opening in 1914 coincided with the paving of the surrounding streets (1100 East, Highland Drive and 2100 South) and the installation of sewer and gas lines in the Sugar House district. The branch was created after repeated requests to the city from citizens of the Sugar House area. It was named for Joanna H. Sprague, an early head of the Salt Lake City public library, who spoke at the opening ceremonies. She began her work in Salt Lake City in 1898, the same year that the library was established, and oversaw the beginnings of the city branch library system during the forty-four years that she was associated with the city library. She earned a national reputation in her profession and was named president of the Pacific Northwest Library Association in 1928. The Sprague branch library was heavily used from the beginning with much community support, and its success spawned the current building.

The Salt Lake City Council and the Sugar House Businessmen’s League were influential in the construction of the new branch building in 1928 on land that had been part of the Sugar House Park and donated by the city to
the library. An effort was made during the design of the building to have the exterior “fit the park surroundings” and to not be of the “usual and conventional style.”4 In 1933 the American Library Association declared the Sprague branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library the most beautiful branch library in America.

The Sugar House community heavily uses the library. It is one of the busiest branches of the Salt Lake City Public Library system. Salt Lake Magazine readers voted it the “best sanctuary on Sunday” in 1999 for its reading room and relaxing atmosphere. Statewide, the Utah Heritage Foundation recognized it for the quality of its 1990 renovation and restoration. The Sugar House Community Master Plan refers to the Sprague Library as “a long-standing community gathering place.” The building retains its historic integrity and contributes to the historic quality of the Sugar House Business District.

The Sprague Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library was built in 1928 a half block south of the center of the Sugar House commercial district at 1100 East and 2100 South. It is constructed in the Jacobethan Revival
style of brick masonry with the main gable roofline running north/south and cross gables to the east (reading room) and west (entrance vestibule and stairs). Its property boundary on the northwest is Parley’s Creek,
currently underground in a conduit, and the parking lot of the Sugar House Commons shopping center.

The building is a colorful combination of brick, stone, terra cotta, cast concrete, and slate with a rock-faced ashlar sandstone foundation in a pale buff color. The striated brick laid in an English bond ranges in tones from
red to brown and the terra cotta accents are pale ivory. The slate roofing varies in color with predominant tones of grays, blues, and purple. The main entrance to the library is on the west facing 1100 East through a raised entrance vestibule under a small gable. A larger west-facing gable section has triple casement windows. Each window is tall and narrow with twelve rectangular lights, metal muntins and mullions, and wooden sash. A
three-sided bay section to the south on the facade has the same windows. Half-timbering fills the tops of the north and south gable ends.

The first floor interior has coved ceilings and an open plan with the stacks in the north area, a reference desk and the main circulation desk in the central room and a smaller reading room and staff work area to the east.
The interior space retains the open area with the high coved ceilings of the initial library space. The basement of the original building has more stack area, a large children’s section, and public rest rooms.

Efforts have been made over the years to maintain and improve the building beginning in 1954 with work on the foundation and continuing with interior renovation in 1971. A 1989-90 remodeling project done by Brixen and Christopher, Architects, for $405,000 using LSCA and Salt Lake City Public Library funds, stabilized the foundation, removed asbestos, added a rear entry/ handicapped access, installed an elevator, replaced lighting throughout, installed energy efficient heating and cooling systems, upgraded the electrical system, insulated the attic, and did other improvements.

Renovations completed in the spring of 2001, again by Brixen and Christopher, for $939,000l , included improvements to the children’s area and the reading room on the main floor as well as the addition of a new
community meeting room and staff office space in the newly excavated basement area with a leaded glass and copper skylight pyramid on the east plaza. The plaza serves as the roof of the addition and provides an outdoor
gathering space to the east of the building. The new eastern entrance is in a sympathetic style, using the same materials as the original building. The copper clad skylight pyramid with leaded glass complements the building.

The building faces west, set back from the street, on 1100 East in a landscaped lot with mature trees and concrete walks leading to the oak doors at the raised entrance. The library retains its original appearance from the traditional entrance on 1100 East. The Sprague Branch library makes a significant contribution to the historic character of the Sugar House business area.

Sugar Beets

05 Saturday Sep 2020

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Art, Hidden Hollow, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House

Sugar Beets – by Day Christensen (2003)

To the residents of Sugar House, the sugar beet symbolizes the area’s history and represents the distinctive character of their community. Sugar was a scarce commodity in the west during pioneer times. In the 1850s, sugar beet seeds were imported from France and one of Utah’s earliest industries was launched. A sugar mill was built near the intersection of present day 2100 South and 1100 East. Water from Parley’s Creek was employed to turn the factory’s water wheel. Although the plan to produce sugar never materialized, the neighborhood adopted the name Sugar House in reference to this centrally located building. The mill was refitted to manufacture paper, and over the years, the Sugar Mill housed a machine shop for the Salt Lake and Utah Central Railway, and then was used as offices for Bamberger Coal Company.

For the artist, the giant cast-bronze sugar beets represent – with humor and affection – a permanent version of this Sugar House symbol.

These beets are located around Sugarhouse and the plaques explaining them are located at both ends of Hidden Hollow.

Granite Lumber Company Building

27 Thursday Aug 2020

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NRHP, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah

The Granite Lumber Company Building constructed c. 1900-1908 & 1919 is significant under Criterion A for its contribution to the historical development of the business district of Sugar House. The building has a
prominent position in the center of the Sugar House commercial area and was one of the early two-story buildings in the area. The Granite Lumber Company Building represents the retail emphasis of the Sugar House
business district since its earliest days. It has always housed retail operations on the first floor with various offices and residential space above. The two-story two-part block brick commercial building was built in two sections in c. 1900-08 and 1919 in the Commercial style. It is significant for its association with the “Early Settlement and Industry, 1848-1909” context of the Sugar House Business District Multiple Resource Area
nomination. It is the oldest known building in the commercial section of Sugar House that retains its historic integrity and one of only a few commercial buildings that retain any architectural integrity.

Located at 1090 E 2100 S in Sugar House, Salt Lake City, Utah It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (#03000629 ) until it was demolished.

Below is what the location looked like in 2020:

The Granite Lumber Company was founded in 1901 by Nephi Hansen who was known as “the mayor or Sugar House” for his leadership in the commercial and civic affairs of Sugar House. He played an important
role in the development of the Sugar House business district and was involved in founding a number of its leading firms; Granite Lumber Company, Sugar Banking Company, Granite Furniture Company, Hygeia Ice
Company, Hansen Auto Company, Builders Finance and Granite Holding Company. Most of these companies had a physical presence in buildings along 2100 South in the center of Sugar House. He was involved in a
variety of business ventures, constructing and managing commercial buildings in Sugar House and at one time was president of seven companies. He believed in spreading the word on the businesses in Sugar House and published a newsletter in 1920 from the Granite Lumber Company, “Splinters, ” that publicized Sugar House, its history and its businesses.

Nephi J. Hansen was born in Salt Lake City in 1868 to Peter and Rosanna Jenne Hansen, Danish immigrants and converts to the LDS Church. He attended school in Sugar House in the adobe schoolhouse then the
University of Deseret. In 1901 Hansen founded the Granite Lumber Company that he headed until his retirement in 1949. 15 While a representative to the State Legislature in 1921 he wrote the first bill to authorize moving the state prison from its Sugar House site. Nephi Hansen was active in Sugar House business and civic affairs until his death in 1951. He belonged to the Sugar House Businessmen’s League, the Commercial Club, and served on the county board to oversee road improvements and other organizations. He was an early landowner in Sugar House, purchasing properties on the northeast and southwest corners of the intersection of 1100 East and 2100 South, as well as various other sites.

The Granite Lumber Company carried lumber, building supplies and hardware in its retail store. It gradually changed to a greater emphasis on retail hardware and its name changed to the Granite Lumber and Hardware Company (1921) and finally the Granite Hardware Company (1928). It had a construction business as well and was responsible for building many of the early Sugar House commercial buildings as well as its own addition to the west in 1919. The Great Depression affected retail businesses severely, especially those associated with new construction and building. The Granite Hardware Company had financial difficulties from 1929-1931, The Granite Hardware Company was able retain ownership of the building but ceased retail operations.

In 1932 the Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI), an LDS-church affiliated store that had cooperative and branch stores in Utah and Mormon-populated towns in nearby states, opened the Granite Mart
in the former Granite Hardware Company space in Sugar House. ZCMI was organized as a joint-stock company by the Mormon Church in 1868 to do joint purchasing for Mormon stores. In the early 1930s it had both wholesale and retail operations, up to 150 at one time. The Granite Mart was used as an outlet for merchandise from the stores that ZCMI was closing in the 1930s. Richard H. Madsen, the president of ZCMI,
acquired the property privately and continued to use the name Granite Mart for the department store that operated on that site until the late 1960s. At that point the building was rented for other retail operations. Ownership changed again in 1992 and the building continued to be occupied by retail companies on the first floor with offices and residential space above. The current occupant is “The Blue Boutique, ” a Sugar House business for the last eighteen years.

Allen Park (Hobbitville)

25 Tuesday Aug 2020

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Tags

Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah

Allen Park, often called Hobbitville is another interesting and unique place in Salt Lake. Many small homes moved into this wooded area creating a little out of place neighborhood and winding paths and cages for exotic peacocks, pheasants, geese and other birds. It’s a place that has caught the imagination of many and created many stories and rumors.

From Hobbitville’s Last Days By David Hampshire

Dr. Allen, an Illinois-trained physician with eclectic tastes, acquired this piece of ground in 1931, 11 years after moving to Utah.

Beginning in the late 1930s, the character of Allen Park began to change. Dr. Allen started to collect old houses that had been built elsewhere and had outlived their usefulness. He had them trucked across town and installed on new foundations on the property east of the main house. One of the first was a log house built in the 1850s by pioneer Thomas Boam in what is now Holladay.

Those little houses were cobbled together in pairs to create duplexes. Some fit together seamlessly; others made very odd couples.

Related Posts:

  • Allen Park (city park)
  • https://www.utahopenlands.org/allen-park
  • https://saveallenpark.org/

Update:
The first weekend of October, 2020 – the park was opened as the newest city park. I started a new page for Allen Park the city park, see that here.

  • (from county records)
  • (from county records)

Hyland Exchange Building

07 Tuesday Jul 2020

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Bishops Storehouses, Historic Buildings, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, Telephone, Telephone Companies, utah

Standing out in the residential area of the Sugar House neighborhood is the Hyland Exchange Building, built in 1911 for the Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Company for their phone operators it served that purpose until the 1940’s when automated phone dialing became possible.

In 1949 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased it to be the Sugar House Bishop’s Storehouse and they manufactured shoes and did other sewing there as well.

When the building was built it was out on the edge of town but as the neighborhood grew it soon became almost considered downtown.

Der Ratskeller Pizza Shoppe

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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Pizza, Restaurants, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah, Vintage Signs

This Dër Ratskeller Pizza Shoppe was built in 1973, I love the classic vintage sign that remains. There were locations across Salt Lake and Idaho but it’s pretty much history now.

Related Posts:

  • Because Pizza – the Ratskeller
  • Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Vintage Signs

Located at 2060 S Windsor, just behind 825 E 2100 S in Salt Lake.

Nu-Crisp Popcorn Co.

15 Monday Jun 2020

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Abandoned, Neon Signs, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah, Vintage Signs

I love the old vintage signs, even better when they’re neon signs. I love to look into the story they tell.

Located at 960 E 2100 S in Salt Lake City, Nu-Crisp Popcorn Co. was established in 1933 and started this location in 1946. The best I can tell it closed in 1994 so I’m surprised it is still sitting here undisturbed in 2020.

They sold 33 flavors of popcorn and a lot of taffy and candy.

Granite Furniture Sign

14 Thursday May 2020

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Neon Signs, Sugar House, utah, Vintage Signs

Granite Furniture here in Sugarhouse, Salt Lake City, Utah opened in 1910. They had this cool rotating vintage neon sign put in later – I heard it was in the 1960’s.

Granite Furniture closed in 2004 and later it was converted into other businesses and thankfully they’ve kept the unique sign, just painted in new colors and updated.

Related Posts:

  • Vintage Signs
  • Sugar House

I saw this cool old ad online here.

Hidden Hollow

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by Jacob Barlow in Uncategorized

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Tags

Parks, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah

  • 2017-12-16 14.12.43

Hidden Hollow

Hidden Hollow is a great nature park in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City, it has a creek flowing through it and walkways all around it with signs explaining history and geology.

Related posts:

  • Business on the Block (historic marker in Hidden Hollow)
  • Historic Sugar House (historic marker in Hidden Hollow)
  • Hygeia Ice Building (historic marker in Hidden Hollow)
  • The Original Sugar House Park
  • Parks in Salt Lake
  • Railroad (historic marker in Hidden Hollow)
  • Sugar Beets (art)
  • The Sugar Mill (historic marker in Hidden Hollow)
  • Ty’s Garden

    Sugar House Monument

    16 Sunday Sep 2018

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    Tags

    Historic Markers, Monuments, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sugar House, utah

    • 2017-11-30 07.56.01

    Sugar House Monument

    Sugar House Monument
    Erected in recognition of the first effort made to manufacture beet sugar in Western America.

    With dauntless perseverance through severe hardships the machinery was brought from Liverpool, Eng. To this place, where in 1853 the sugar mill was constructed.

    May the spirit of this courageous venture continue to characterize this community.

    The Old Sugar House
    Home of one of the earliest efforts toward the creation of local industry in Utah.

    At these crossroads in 1853-55, a structure was erected which stood for many years as a symbol of pioneer enterprise and courage. Its site was approximately two hundred feet east of this spot.

    After the sugar project was abandoned, the old mill served many other useful purposes. Its life ended in 1928.

    The Sugar House Mill: How Sugar House Got Its Name
    This section of Parley’s Creek contributed to the creation of Sugar House as a thriving business district. Water from the creek powered a sugar mill near the corner of Highland Drive and 2100 South, which ultimately gave Sugar House its name. The mill was built in 1854 by pioneers hoping to produce white sugar from beets. The mill soon failed and by 1856 had been converted to the first paper mill successfully operated in the west. At one time, the Sugar Mill housed a machine shop for the Salt Lake and Utah Central Railway. It was later used as offices for Bamberger Coal Company until it was torn down in 1928.

    S.U.P. Marker #39, Jordan & Salt Lake City Canal is located here too.

    Related:

    • Monument Plaza

    • 2017-11-30 07.57.55
    • 2017-11-30 07.55.54
    • 2017-11-30 07.58.03
    • 2017-11-30 07.58.26
    • 2017-11-30 07.58.16
    • 2017-11-30 07.58.40
    • 2017-11-30 07.58.51
    • 2017-11-30 07.58.58
    • 2017-11-30 07.57.21
    • 2017-11-30 07.57.29

    The Sugar House Monument, built in 1930, is significant under Criterion A as a local landmark and the center of the Sugar House business district. The work reflects the cohesiveness of the merchants of the Sugar House business district as it was initially commissioned by the Sugar House Business Men’s League and renovations to it were spearheaded by the Sugar House Business and Professional Women’s Club. The monument was constructed in 1930 during the “A City Within A City, 1910-1954” context to commemorate the founders of the sugar beet industry in Utah. It is also significant under Criterion C as the outstanding work of a local sculptor, Millard Malin, combined with the design of the architectural firm of Anderson and Young. The fifty-foot high shaft retains its historic and architectural integrity and is being nominated as part of the multiple property submission, Sugar House Business District Multiple Resource Area. (*)

    History of the Sugar House Monument

    The plaza on which the monument stands was built in 1914 as 2100 South was realigned and Parley’s Creek was buried in conduit. It was reconstructed in 1927 by the city at a cost of $5,219. 7 The plan for a monument to be located on the plaza grew out of a suggestion made by Millard Malin, a sculptor, in 1928 to the Sugar House Business Men’s League that they erect a monument to “early Utah industry”8 on the plaza in Sugar House. He also presented a proposed two-foot high model for the statue to the group. The Sugar House Business League and the City of Salt Lake built the monument in 1930, following a competition to choose the winning design. The city share of the cost was $2,000.9 The plaza was dedicated on November 11, 1934.

    The Sugar House Business and Professional Women’s Club, the Sugar House Chamber of Commerce and the Salt Lake City Commission joined together to clean up and maintain the monument and plaza in 1947. The clean up effort was part of Sugar House merchants’ efforts at beautification for the centennial of the original Mormon settlers entering Salt Lake City in 1847. The Salt Lake City Engineering Department cleaned the monument itself and replaced the wooden light poles at the ends of the plaza with ornamental steel ones as well as replacing curbs and gutters as needed.

    The brass bas-relief plaque at the base of the monument on the north picturing the old sugar mill was added in 1948, using funds raised by the Sugar House Business and Professional Women’s Club. Malin’s original design had the sugar mill plaque on the north and one of fur trading at the Smoot trading post that was located on the site of the monument on the south. The south plaque was never finished.

    The Artists

    The sculptor of the monument, Millard Fillmore Malin, was born in Salt Lake City in 1891. He studied art at the University of Utah under Edwin Evans from 1914-1915 and later enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York. He worked under Norman A. MacNeil from 1917-1918 on a sculpture of Ezra Cornell, which is located at Cornell University. He also assisted Gutzon Borglum on the Stone Mountain Memorial in Georgia. After his move back to Salt Lake City in 1923 he concentrated his work on monumental and architectural sculptures. His sculpture is realistic and he is considered one of Utah’s most outstanding sculptors.

    His most famous work is the Sugar House Monument but he also completed other public sculptures in Utah. The Utah State Capitol building houses busts of two Native Americans of the Ute tribe, Unca Sam and Chief John Duncan, and a commemorative bronze plaque for the battleship Utah honoring the victims of the Pearl Harbor bombing. From 1950-1960 he completed baptismal fonts and other works for LDS 10 temples designed by Edward O. Anderson as LDS Church architect in Los Angeles; Bern, Switzerland; London, England, and New Zealand. The Dinosaur Monument located at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, Utah, was completed in 1964. Research astronomy was Malin’s avocation and he published three titles on gravity and the solar arrangement.

    After winning the competition for the monument, Millard Fillmore Malin called in Edward Oliver Anderson and his partner, Lorenzo (Bing) Young, to collaborate on the design. 11 Malin and Anderson met while they were both at the University of Utah in 1914-15 and they became lifelong friends. Edward Oliver Anderson was also born in 1891. He was involved in many building projects for the LDS Church such as the Waycross Branch in Waycross, Georgia, the North Afton Ward in Afton, Wyoming, and the Bryan Ward in Salt Lake City. Anderson was the LDS Church Architect and also served on the board of temple architects. He designed the Idaho Falls Temple in 1945 with a team of four others. This temple design began the LDS Church post-war temple-building program that increasingly utilized standard plans. He also did the three-story London Temple in 1958.

    Lorenzo Snow (Bing) Young was born in 1894 in Salt Lake City, a grandson of Brigham Young, the second president of the LDS Church. He was a graduate of Pratt Institute in New York and spent forty years practicing architecture in Salt Lake City. During his career he helped to design over 300 buildings including the new Marriott Library at the University of Utah; Olympus and Highland High Schools in Salt Lake City, and the Special Events Center at Brigham Young University. He was also a member of the LDS Church Board of Architects during the construction of the Los Angeles and Idaho Falls LDS temples. Before his death in 1968 he was a partner at Young and Fowler Associates.

    Anderson and Young were partners for eight years from 1928 to 1936. During this time the firm of Anderson and Young designed and constructed buildings for the LDS Church in St. George and Richfield, Utah. Other examples of their work include the Granite Stake Tabernacle and Lincoln Ward on 2005 South 900 East in 1929 2 ; the Tudor Revival Milwaukee Ward in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and the Vernal First Ward in Vernal, Utah. A notable non-ecclesiastical public building of their design is Kingsbury Hall, the University of Utah Auditorium in Salt Lake City, built in 1928 (NR, 1978).

    The monument is in a simplified Art Deco style that occurred in Utah primarily from 1930-1940. The ornamentation of the Art Deco style was influenced by the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs. The monument displays many Art Deco ornamental patterns, like the angular decorative geometric designs on the sides of the vertical shaft and the vertical molded patterns typical of the style. The carved Limestone bands that run horizontally along the north and south sides of the pool beds as well as two bands on the bottom section of the shaft, above the seated statues, have stylized plant and natural motifs. Malin describes the pattern used as “Double Sun.” It has a sego lily at the center and is surrounded by the sun with its corona, stars, planets and a crescent moon.

    There are two massive bronze figures seated at the base facing east and west. The female figure to the east represents the fertility of the Salt Lake Valley and is modeled on Marjorie Lewis, a friend of the sculptor. The male figure is modeled on Max Croft, a stone worker who was found by the sculptor as he was heaving rocks to create the monument. He represents a mill builder and is pouring water from an urn over a wheel.

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