Utah Heritage Foundation

The Hunter House restoration has been taken over by a SWATC team.  High school students enrolled in the Southwest Applied Technology College (SWATC) building construction class are repairing plaster, restoring a fireplace, and stripping and refinishing wood trim as part of the second phase of work on the historic home.  Other contractors began the restoration with repair of the foundation and re-roofing after the house was moved to the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum (formerly Iron Mission State Park) in 2005 to prevent its demolition.  Utah Heritage Foundation was instrumental in the advocacy process that led to arrangements for saving it.

Free Photography Workshop

Utah Heritage Foundation will hold a workshop teaching the basics of architectural photography in preparation for our For the Love of MOD Mid-Century Modern Photography Contest.  Taking place in Memorial House in Memory Grove Park (485 North Canyon Road, Salt Lake City) on Saturday, February 6 at 10:00 AM, this workshop will be taught by retired University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning Professor Peter Goss.  The workshop is free and is open to the public.

Forsey's Furniture Galleries

You don’t have to be a contractor and it doesn’t have to take all weekend.  So here’s a few tips from James Schwartz of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to keep your windows working well this winter.

Looking back at the historical center of many Utah towns, you have a handful of choices as to what could be considered the heart of the community.  Certainly a church.  Maybe a park.  Favorite restaurant.  A school or city hall.

How about a dance hall?  There were literally dozens of them spread across the state of all shapes and sizes.  Starting in 1848 with the Social Hall in 1852 as a modest gathering place for social dances in Salt Lake City, the idea spread to other towns remaining popular through the 1940s.  Arguably the most popular and most majestic of dance halls was the Richard Kletting-designed Saltair, which burned twice and now exists in its third iteration.

However, as we witnessed last summer on our members tour to Delta, one amazing dance hall lies in wait for a revival.  Van’s Hall on Main Street (seen above) isn’t open to the public anymore but is waiting to lure weekenders back for a swing around wood-grained floors.  There aren’t many like Van’s Hall left and it would take an acute effort to rehab the building.  Simply enough, there’s only two steps to take before you can dance the two-step there again:  1) raise enough money for rehabilitation, and 2) do the rehabilitation.  And they need help and interest to get it off the ground.

Cisco Disco

January 23rd 2010

 See PDF of the invitation

6am to 10am Catch Cisco at Cisco Beach! (East Side)

12 Noon Bear Lake Monster Polar Plunge at the Marina

The narrow and tall, striking red sandstone building at 22 East 100 South known as the “Brownstone Building” has seen more than its share of mall construction over the decades.  But current owner Bill Campbell isn’t waiting for City Creek Center to be completed to ensure that the historic building he owns will be around for decades to come as he has signed a preservation easement with Utah Heritage Foundation to protect the property in perpetuity.

Originally built as the Utah Commercial & Savings Bank Building by Francis Armstrong in 1890, the three-story building is one of the rare examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the state of Utah, as seen in the photo at left (Courtesy Utah State Historical Society).   Bank President Armstrong was an energetic entrepreneur who after a short time working in Brigham Young’s flour mill at the bottom of Parley’s Canyon, formed a lumber mill and general contracting business known as Taylor, Romney and Armstrong Co.  He went on to serve in county government from 1881 until 1886 when he was elected Mayor of Salt Lake City.

Architect Richard K.A. Kletting, “Dean of Utah Architects,” served as designer for the building.  Expectations were high as one journalist predicted that upon its completion it would be “the finest front of any building in Utah.”  Every floor is custom designed and reflected on the exterior by the window patterns.   The red sandstone is intricately carved with leaf and basketweave designs on projecting elements.  The overall effect of the building’s design is one of order and strength, principles made popular by H.H. Richardson in some of the best surviving examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style in Chicago, Boston, and New York.

Today, the Utah

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has announced that Tim Bailey, a fifth grade teacher at Escalante Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah, is the recipient of the 2009 Preserve America National History Teacher of the Year award. The award is co-sponsored by The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Preserve America and HISTORY™. Bailey will receive the $10,000 award on December 16, 2009 at the School Without Walls in Washington, D.C. United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be on hand to congratulate Bailey and speak about the importance of American history education.

Tim Bailey began his teaching career in 1989. He has written three American history workbooks focused on primary sources for elementary classrooms in the Easy Simulations series, published in 2008 by Scholastic. He has also served as a teacher mentor for the past eight years. A Fulbright Scholar in 2003, Bailey has earned several awards from the state of Utah, the Salt Lake City school district, and others.

Read the full press release