Utah Ice and Cold Storage Company 551 West Third South
The building was constructed about 1902 for the Utah Ice and Storage Company. According to city directories, it manufactured and sold artificial ice and provided "cold storage." The 1911 Sanborn Map indicates that the building was in operation "day and night." The company was a large firm and occupied the building until recently.
The Utah Ice and Cold Storage Company building is a rectangular brick structure of no particular architectural significance. The painted mural on the north elevation, however, is probably the finest example of period commercial art on the exterior of a building in the downtown Salt Lake City area. Few examples of exterior painted advertising of the early twentieth century remain. Multiple colors, serifs, flourishes, and curving horizontal movement typify the mural as a work of this period. Painted advertising on the elevations of commercial structures was a common practice during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this case an extra effort went into the function, making the mural aesthetically pleasing and a distinctive feature of the structure.
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