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For Commerce, Copper, and Children: The Architecture of Scott & Welch, 1914-38
For Commerce, Copper, and Children: The Architecture of Scott & Welch, 1914-38
BY ELIZABETH EGLESTON
ALTHOUGH THEIR WORK CAN BE SEEN THROUGHOUT Salt Lake City as well as in numerous small communities in Utah, little has been written about architects Carl W. Scott and George W. Welch. They are best known for their designs of South High School and the Salt Lake Masonic Temple. Their firm specialized in educational structures, but it also designed a variety of building types, including workers' housing, warehouses and commercial buildings, apartment houses, community centers, and a clinic The firm worked in a variety of styles. They tended to employ Spanish Revival and when they used Art Deco and Moderne styles. traditional forms and details are evident. The architects often incorporated unique and individual expression in their commissions. Carl Scott and George Welch left an indelible impression on the built environment of Utah and are worthy of study because their commissions document several themes in the state's development, including educational trends, the Great Depression, and the importance of New Deal programs in Utah.
Scott & Welch was typical of local architectural firms across the country that were constrained by the parameters of a client s budget and economic conditions. Although their work frequently displays distinctive qualities, limited resources often prevented them from indulging in stylistic flamboyance. The two men began their joint practice in 1914 but received little work until the early 1920s. From that point on they were prolific and managed to flourish during the twenties, when Utah's economy was stagnant, and to survive during the thirties, when half of the nation's architectural firms went out of business within the first year of the depression.1 Their association with mining executives and school superintendents served them well, as did their ability to execute pleasing designs combined with technical innovation.
Carl Walter Scott was born in Minneapolis, Kansas, in 1887. In 1892 his family moved to Park City where his father had taken the job of secretary for the Silver King mines. Eleven years later the family moved to Salt Lake City, which gave Scott the opportunity to matriculate at the University of Utah. He graduated in 1907 with a degree in mining engineering and began his career as a draftsman with Richard K. A. Kletting's architectural firm. Kletting was working on his Utah State Capitol commission at the time and assigned Scott to work on the plans for the foundation. In 1912 Scott married Arlie Johnson and became the father of a son and daughter, Carl Walter and Dudley Arline.2
Scott had well developed mechanical skills. Described as an "inventive genius," he patented an automobile fuel pump, a radiator control drive, and an evaporative cooler. His strong interest in prefabricated structures led him to create designs that were similar to Quonset huts. He employed the concrete girt, now known as a bond beam, long before it was considered a necessary component of a masonry wall.3 Encompassing the perimeter of the wall, the girt was an important seismic device for construction in Utah. Scott also invented and patented a copper pipe soldering system in which fittings were turned on a lathe so that they would be tighter. Many of his inventions were not patented, however, because others were devising similar items at the same time.4
It was in Kletting's office that Carl Scott apparently first met George W. Welch. Little information about Welch has come to light He was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1886, graduated from Colorado College, and moved to Salt Lake City after working in Denver and Seattle. He married Theda Knight, and they had a son and a daughter. Welch was active in political affairs, serving in the Utah House of Representatives during 1919-20.5
Welch was primarily a designer, while Scott was the dominant figure in the firm, handling most of the contact with clients and generating business. Scott also did much of the designing, especially on such large projects as the Masonic Temple and South High School. Scott & Welch was at its largest in the late twenties when the firm employed about eight people.6
The firm's first commission was the chapter house at the University of Utah for Scott's fraternity, Sigma Chi, constructed in 1914. The house, located at 1395 East 100 South, is a large English half-timbered Tudor design with an imitation thatch roof of asphalt shingles. The building permit, issued on July 23, 1914, indicated that the house would cost an estimated $10,000 and that it was to be constructed of brick, iron, and concrete.7
With the exception of the Freeman Apartments at 440 East 400 South in Salt Lake City, built in 1917, Scott & Welch apparently had few major commissions until 1923. In that year they designed the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing building at 380 West 200 South, one of the last warehouses built in the area west of Salt Lake's central business district The building's structural concrete system is exposed in the vertical supports that visually function as pilasters, with concrete horizontal members serving as lintels. An abstracted arcade is located on the second story; such a feature is a motif found repeatedly in Scott & Welch designs. This structure is very simple, but the geometric, abstract capitals, painted cobalt blue, provide the warehouse with ornamentation. This building now houses the Salt Lake Stamp Company.
Scott & Welch designed two other structures in the west side district the Firestone Tire Company at 308 West 300 South in 1925 and the adjacent Nelson Ricks Creamery building at 314 West 300 South in
1927. The former housed wholesale accessories and tire-changing facilities, with half of the building rented out as a service station.8 It has little ornamentation and an entirely functional appearance, yet it is one of the most visually pleasing buildings in the area. Scott & Welch deftly incorporated abstracted classical details, such as pilasters topped by simple Tuscan capitals and rondels ornamenting the frieze. These details, competently integrated with the twenty-pane windows in the second story, give the building an industrial appearance.
Between 1923 and 1926 Scott & Welch designed three buildings for fraternal organizations in Utah. Two of them, the Elks Club Lodge and the Masonic Temple, were among the largest buildings constructed in Salt Lake City during the 1920s. The third was the Masonic Temple in Price. Since both Scott and Welch were active Masons and Welch an Elks member as well, they most likely obtained the commissions through these associations.
As the Price Masonic Temple was nearing completion in 1926, Scott & Welch was engaged in preparing plans for one of the firm's most important commissions, the Salt Lake Masonic Temple, a building that would cost $500,000.9 Scott and others on a building committee traveled throughout the United States to study Masonic temples; later Scott estimated that this exposure to the success or failure of other Masonic structures saved the Salt Lake lodge $150,000.10 A significant landmark on South Temple, the building is one of Utah's largest and most prominent examples of Egyptian Revival. Utah granite was used for the base and stairway. The body of the building is sheathed in gray brick, and the columns and trim are terra cotta of the same color as the brick Scott later explained one of the important design concerns:
While completing plans for warehouses and fraternal orders, the firm was also busy with commissions from one of its most important clients, the Utah Copper Company. Scott& Welch's work for the mining company again shows a facility for flexibility in adroitly providing designs for structures of varying functions and styles. The firm's association with Utah Copper must have generated a significant income. Additionally, because Louis Gates, general manager of UCC, eventually served on the Utah State Board of Education, he was probably the critical link for Scott &: Welch's numerous school commissions.
One of the earliest projects undertaken by Scott & Welch for Utah Copper was the clubhouse for employees at Arthur, Utah. The architects combined Spanish Revival elements with the firm's typical use of arched window's. Completed in 1925, the clubhouse was gray stucco, trimmed in brick, with a Spanish tile roof In the lounge or on the screened-in porch, a club member could rest and "let his eyes rove over a desert and lake landscape of incomparable beauty."12 On the first floor a gymnasium surrounded by balconies could accommodate 750 people. Also on the first floor was another lounge with a fireplace, a bowling alley, billiard and pool tables, a shower, and a locker room. To employees accustomed to working in or near a dirty smelter by the barren landscape of the Great Salt Lake, the Arthur clubhouse must have seemed an oasis offering welcome relaxation and recreation. 13
Scott & Welch's best-known project for UCC was Copperton, a company town twenty-five miles west of Salt Lake City and three miles east of the mouth of the Bingham open-pit mine. By 1926 eighteen homes were finished; the following year thirty more were ready, and eventually over two hundred were built in the town. Copperton provided housing for higher-paid company employees and also displayed the uses of copper as a building material. Only married workers were permitted to rent them. As a contemporary article pointed out, "Copperton will be a town of families—there will be no room for the floater, the pool-room habitue or the bootlegger."14
Basically, the Copperton houses were bungalows that featured a variety of vague Norman, Tudor, and Mediterranean stylistic references. They were clad with stucco in either a smooth or textured surface, or brick, or a combination. Some had battered porch columns characteristic of medieval styles; still others had Tudor cottage motifs. Scott & Welch alleviated monotony by reversing the plans and applying different details to the same basic house. These details included Stars of David within circles placed under the gables, conical tile roofs, thin porch columns with simple Tuscan orders on porches, and decorative bands of brick. The roof lines and massing of the porches were also varied.
The firm designed other amenities for the town, such as an eight-acre community park One entrance to the park is marked by four piers and a metal arch with the company's name and the date, 1927. Within the park are curvilinear paths, four tennis courts, and a children's playground. The initial layout of curvilinear streets, combined with the placement of the park at its very heart, kept Copperton from having a regularly spaced grid. This made Copperton unique in Utah, as the use of a grid is a plan for which Mormon town planning is famous.
Copperton seems to have been something of an anomaly in other ways. John Reps, writing in The Making of Urban America, stated that company towns generally failed to enlist sympathetic and vigorous support from their residents. The paternalistic concept of industry acting as both employer and landlord is contrary to the American tradition and resulted in an inverse relationship between physical appearance and the community's social and political spirit.15 Copperton seems to have transcended these constraints. Workers and their families enjoyed living in the town, and much of its success as a community should be attributed to its built environment for which Scott & Welch was initially responsible.
In 1928 the firm designed another project associated with Utah Copper, a large house for general manager Louis C. Gates. This home in the Bonneville on-Hill area, now called Federal Heights, in Salt Lake City was among the first houses in that neighborhood. 16 Built in the style of an Italian villa and finished in stucco with terra cotta trim, it cost $60,000. 17 The street elevation is basically flat, but the back has a loggia supporting a balcony. The arches of the loggia repeat the arches of the windows on the first story. The classical design and large scale of this house provide a sharp contrast to the prosaic Craftsman houses of Copperton, another illustration of the firm's design facility. The Cates house further exemplifies the architects' tendency to use stylistic details reminiscent of the Mediterranean.
After their work for UCC, Scott & Welch received few if any commissions for residential designs. Utah's economy remained stagnant during the 1920s. Although construction of single family housing continued, it is likely that the institutional sector provided a more lucrative market for architects. School districts throughout the state gave Scott &: Welch many important commissions beginning about 1925. These projects, because of federal funding, continued to provide income for the architects during the depression.
The architects adhered to the conventional tenets of school architecture, which had undergone dramatic changes in the period from 1890 to 1910, reaching a level of maturity that was not significantly disrupted until after World War II. During this twenty-year period at the turn of the century, superintendents and architects were primarily concerned with fire safety and expanding the use of school buildings for community activities. These concerns were manifested in the form and plan of schools. For example, architects discontinued the use of a single, central stairwell, wooden stairs, narrow halls, and poorly designed heating systems. To encourage the community to use the school during off hours, they placed auditoriums and gymnasiums near a main entrance. Exits and entrances were arranged so that the public would not have access to the whole building when school was not in session.18 To lure students into continuing their education past the eighth grade school officials began to offer a broader spectrum of classes, many career oriented After 1910, business, mechanical, trade, and domestic skills were considered basic to a high school program. Proper lighting for students was also addressed in improving school architecture. This, it was determined, involved the use of windows along the wall to the students' left To satisfy this need architects frequently designed schools in the shape of an E, I, or T to maximize window space.19
Schools designed by Scott & Welch represent the educational profession's concern for fireproof structures and the special facilities required for domestic science, mechanical arts, and business education. Many Scott & Welch schools retained the traditional rectangular shape, especially in small towns where a complex plan was unnecessary. Large schools, such as South High and Park City High, were built in the shape of an E or a T, respectively, to achieve proper lighting. Among the firm's many designs the Tooele Elementary School offered the widest assortment of amenities for primary grades and reflected educators' interest in combining schooling with good health.
Several of Scott & Welch's school designs merit a closer look in order to understand the various stylistic devices employed. The firm's first school commissions, for junior highs in Spanish Fork and West Jordan in 1925, resulted in very plain, symmetrical structures sheathed with red brick and ornamented with concrete coping and projecting front blocks. The drawings for the Riverton School, constructed in 1926, show more ornamentation, such as brick quoins, pilasters, and Doric and Tuscan capitals, giving it a Wrenish/Georgian Revival cast A recessed entrance and columns in antis added to the visual appeal.
The Tindc Gymnasium, 1926, and the Midvale Junior High, 1928, are very similar with their lunette windows separated by brick spandrels. The gym had other Georgian Revival motifs that included concrete finials above the pilasters and a balustrade encircling the entrance. It is reminiscent of a church meetinghouse with only a steeple missing. The gym's basement served as a mechanical arts room, while athletic activities occurred on the first floor. Plain, functional windows if luminated the mechanical arts room; substantial fenestration with lunette windows and keystones suggests the different function above.
The Park City High School, 1929, begins to show an increased use of ornamentation with references to Collegiate Gothic. The stairwell windows are accentuated with two narrow, rounded arch windows encased by coping and elliptical spandrels; beneath the sills are decorative stone blocks with an exaggerated curved profile. The blocks are embellished with a shield in the center, surrounded by Roman acanthus leaves. Door surrounds are composed of blocky cast stone members within which is a recessed molding ornamented with wild rose leaves.
In 1929 Scott & Welch also designed the $350,000 Bingham High School, a large project in Copperton, across the highway from the company town the firm had planned four years earlier. This building represents a shift to a more angular and vertical appearance than the Park City High School with its rounded windows and Gothic details. From a sketch and description in the newspaper it appears that the architects originally had a different concept of the school. Two hipped roofed towers and a low, rounded roof gave this design a Spanish or Mission Revival look and surviving plans in the firm's collection are compatible with the newspaper rendering. The article stated that the school would be finished in light brown with terra cotta trimming and red roofing tile.20 The actual school building is very different Its eclectic style might be termed "Gothic Deco" with angular buttresses. Extending above the roof line, these resemble small ziggurats and are embellished with a variety of terra cotta details in low relief, including triglyphs with dentil-like forms above that flank a pedimented square, terminating fluting created by laying bricks diagonally. A large carrot, an abstracted elongated sunburst, and a series of sinuous floral motifs may also be seen.
The Bingham High School can be thought of as a major turning point in the work of Scott & Welch, for it resembles to a great degree one of the firm's largest and most recognizable works. South High School, constructed in 1930. The largest school in Salt Lake City at the time, with a capacity of two thousand students, South High cost $850,000 to build, with real estate and furnishings bringing the total to $1 million.21 Scott &: Welch's most ornate school. South High's geometric, blocky form and unusual amount of lavish detail are in keeping with the Art Deco tradition.
With the onset of the depression, money for schools as elaborate as South High dried up, and Scott & Welch became dependent on federal funds. Utah ranked ninth in federal Public Works Administration allocations, and the state directed a high proportion of these funds to school construction. Utah also had a solid record of evenly dividing education monies between rural and urban schools.22 This had positive implications for architects like Scott & Welch, and the firm provided designs for schools throughout the state.
Working with the PWA was not easy, however; architects faced austere budgets and complained in trade journals that time restrictions were impossible. Furthermore, one set of rules applied regardless of the size of the project, its location, and local conditions. Teachers also registered frustration with federal restrictions. In a survey conducted in 1935, thirty out of thirty-five teachers responded that they were unconvinced that "the school in which you teach is the best possible plan for the town, district and pupils," Fortunately, architects were less regulated in matters of design. The 1935 Architectural Forum revealed that forty- six out of the sixty-five school superintendents who responded left "style of design" up to the architect.23
Several of the firm's schools built under auspices of the PWA resemble those constructed in the late twenties; the Marsac School in Park City, for example, echoes the earlier Bingham High. But for the most part, the work of the firm on PWA schools brought a change in their designs. The economic problems of the depression did not permit the profuse ornamentation seen previously. Streamlined Moderne and a simpler Art Deco offered the possibility of a frugal, less-embellished style.
Two fine examples of these simpler designs are the Tintic Elementary School and the Arts Building in Eureka, constructed in 1938. Simple shapes and clean lines create a no frills, governmental appearance. With rounded corners and sharply contrasting right angles the two structures are very similar. Both were built with combed, buffcolored brick in a tapestry finish. The two-story elementary school is basically a rectangular block with a set-back rounded and indented corner on two opposite facades. The Arts Building has a centered projection, serving as an entrance, whose rounded corners are juxtaposed by the square corners of the main block of the building. On both buildings the streamlined effect is enhanced by three terra-cotta cornice bands. The Arts Building has an additional Moderne detail: an oculus, through which the string courses condnue, placed above the entrance.
The PWA funds expended on these structures were admirably spent, for Eureka was in dire need of an elementary school. Grade school children had been housed in an inadequate and unsafe 1897 structure. The two new buildings were served by a new central heating system, and both had many amenities and mechanical features:
Scott & Welch used a simplified Art Deco style for the Morgan Elementary School and Mechanical Arts Building in 1936. These buildings were part of a rural school consolidation program implemented by officials who wanted to close older, isolated one- and two-room schoolhouses. Along with the two buildings designed by Scott & Welch, two more structures on the same site were administered as a single unit. The four buildings represented a capital investment of $250,000. Parents petitioned the school board so that their children could attend the new grade school, and "a fleet of seven large new buses" transported the students from four to twelve miles each day.25 The Morgan School District sought to extend educational benefits to the county s adults as well. The new school buses brought rural citizens into town once a week for lectures and forums.26
The plan of the Morgan Elementary School was straightforward. The auditorium was located at the front of the school with a "playroom," probably used as a gymnasium or cafeteria, above the auditorium on the second floor. These two rooms occupied about half of the original space and were covered by a shallow gabled roof A two-story entrance projected from these rooms and provided a foyer for the auditorium and kitchen space above. Behind this front block were eight classrooms, two of which were double the size of the others. The exterior design of the school and the Mechanical Arts Building is very cohesive. Both are faced with reddish yellow combed brick and both reflect an austere use of Art Deco.
Scott & Welch designed buildings other than schools through the PWA, including a county courthouse in Moab, a community center in Richmond, and a civic auditorium in Helper. The Helper structure, representative of this group, was built between October 1936 and October 1937 for $100,000.27 Faced with a tapestry brick finish, it derives its streamlined appearance from the rounded corners and the light-colored fluted concrete coping and belt course that emphasize the roof line and corners. The recessed concrete surround of the main entrance gives further definition to the auditorium's Moderne appearance. In its sleek simplicity the auditorium's facade is misleading, however, for Scott & Welch employed clever masonry details. Their use of Flemish bond in the cornice, stacked bond along the stepped windows delineating the stairwells, and common bond throughout gives the building both quality and refinement.
The auditorium is symmetrical and has three stories. From the street, however, the building appears to have only two, so that its purpose as an auditorium is concealed from this view. When the side facade is studied all stories are evident, and the parapet wall lends a Georgian cast, indicating that Scott &: Welch was not quite ready to leave traditional motifs behind. Rectangular lights used in the fenestration further demonstrate that this building is stylistically transitional.
After the depression public architecture continued to provide the bulk of the firm's commissions. The partnership of Carl Scott and George Welch was dissolved in 1941, a year before Welch died. The firm was known simply by Scott's name until 1947 when Harold K. Beecher joined the firm and became a partner. The firm became Scott & Beecher although Scott's son, Walter, was also a partner. In 1948 Carl Scott designed the Salt Lake Shriners' Hospital and subsequently became the consulting architect for all Shriners' hospitals. Carl Scott worked until his death in 1959; in that year Beecher left the firm, and Walter Scott formed a partnership with Will Louie. William Browning joined them in 1961, and the firm devised its current name: Scott, Louie, and Browning.
Scott & Welch can be studied from several viewpoints: educational structures, PWA buildings, or simply as local architects. The firm's school designs trace a transformation, at least in exterior appearance, from the unadorned Spanish Fork and West Jordan buildings through Gothic and Georgian Revival of the Park City High School and the Tintic Gymnasium to the exuberant Art Deco of the Bingham and South high schools. Although school design reached a plateau in the years from 1910 until World War II, Scott & Welch put their educational commissions through a brisk evolution. In addition to stylistic changes the architects gave careful consideration to heating and ventilation systems, theater equipment, and circulation patterns and incorporated many mechanical and structural innovations.
Stylistically Scott and Welch did not work at the cutting edge of architecture, but they expressed aesthetic innovation in a variety of subtle ways. Generally the firm displayed design originality through a unique use of ornament in even the most prosaic structures. The N. O. Nelson Manufacturing building, for example, features a discrete color scheme in the abstract capitals, while the Firestone building achieves an overall harmonious appearance by virtue of the balanced integration of massing, fenestration, and simple ornamentation. When budgets were large Scott & Welch produced such works as the South and Bingham high schools, but when money was tight they incorporated stylistic details through an array of masonry techniques and fenestration.
The firm left a legacy that provides a broader understanding of the effect of the Public Works Administration on the built domain of the state. Driving into small towns like Eureka or Helper, one is struck by the freshness of a Scott & Welch public school or auditorium set among ranch style houses, vacant lots, and perhaps a decaying row of late Victorian commercial blocks. The architects' contribution represents on one level the impulse toward renewal in small towns and also provides the first evidence of a partnership between the public and private sectors and the first examples of the federal relief effort in Utah.
Other questions concerning Scott & Welch remain. The role of outside influences and of others within the firm is not yet apparent The effect of state legislation on school construction could shed light on why the architects used particular plans and materials. Interesting questions arise concerning the relationship of this firm to others of the same era, but more research must be completed before Scott & Welch can be placed within the larger context of the local architectural scene. The 1915 Pacific Pan American Exhibition with its emphasis on Spanish and Mission Revival might have influenced Scott & Welch designs. The contacts the architects had with colleagues in other states might also provide insight into the practice of the firm, particularly in the 1950s when Carl Scott became very heavily involved in designing Shriners' hospitals. Perhaps this study will encourage others to research these and other topics in Utah's rich architectural history.
NOTES
1 "Government in Building," Architectural Forum 64 (March 1936): 145.
2 Obituary, Salt Lake Tribune May 20, 1959, p.38.
3 "Carl Scott," Utah Architect» no. 26 (1961): 7.
4 Interview with Walter Scott, Salt Lake City, Utah, January 21, 1988.
5 "Death Closes Career of Salt Lake Architect," Salt Lake Tribune, July 4, 1942, p. 21.
6 Interview with Walter Scott.
7 Building permit 6678-6178, July 23, 1914, Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City.
8 "Tire Firm to Build Branch," Salt Lake Tribune, June 20, 1925, p.18.
9 "Laying of Cornerstone is to Take Place at 10 o’clock this Morning, Salt Lake Tribune, December 15, 1926, from personal scrapbook of Carl Scott, p. 18, in possession of Waiter Scott.
10 Carl W. Scott, Symbolism in the Masonic Temple at Salt Lake City, Utah-A Record Presented in Wasatch Lodge No. 1, F. & A.M., March 10, 1944, p. 3.
11 Ibid., p. 1.
12 "Recently Dedicated Utah Copper Club Plant Achieves High Standard of Elegance," Salt Lake Tribune, May 24, 1925, p. 12.
13 Ibid.
14 William Spencer, "Copperton-A Model Home Town for Utah Copper Employees," Engineering and Mining Journal 125 (March 3, 1928): 372.
15 John Reps, The Making of Urban America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965, p. 438.
16 Sanborn fire insurance map, 1937, vol. 1, p. 103, Utah State Historical Society Library.
17 "Italian Villa Nears Completion," Salt Lake Tribune, April 22, 1928, p. 14.
18 Susanne Ralston Lichtenstein, "American School Buildings: 1890 to 1920" (MA thesis, Cornell University, 1985), pp. 151-55.
19 Ibid.
20 "New Bingham High School to be Built in Model Town of Copperton," Salt Lake Tribune, June 16, 1929, p. 12-C.
21 "The New South Senior High School," Utah Educational Review, 25 (1931-32): 25.
22 "Charting U.S. Education," Architectural Forum 62 (January 1935): 10-11.
23 "Symposium on Schools," Architectural Forum. 62 (January 1935): 18.
24 "Tintic District Schools Open in Two New Buildings," Salt Lake Tribune, September 29, 1938, Carl Scotťs personal scrapbook, p. 44.
25 "Morgan Parents Eager to Have Children Obtain Education at Consolidation School," Ogden Standard Examiner, October 4, 1936, p. 16.
26 Twenty-third Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction,...July JO, 1 940, p. 7 2, in State of Utah, Public Documents, 1938-40.
27 John McCormick and Thomas Carter, "Public Works Buildings Thematic Resources," National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination Form, Utah State Historical Society, January 1985.
