Utah Preservation Restoration, Volume 3, 1981

Architectural drawing of towers section of Salt Lake LDS Truman Osbcnn Angel, a.1887.

Temple by

Portals of the Salt Lake LDS Temple.

UTAH

PRESERVATION/RESTORATION is published annually by University Services, a Utah corporation with editorial and business ofices at 1159 East Second Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103 (801) 532-3361.

Copyright @ 1981by University Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright contents may not be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission of University Services.

Editor/Publisher

C. Nina Cutrubus Associate Editor Tracy Woodworth Editorial Consultants Wilson G. Martin Preservation Development Coordinator Utah State Historical Society Larry Jones Preservation Consultant Utah State Historical Society Contributing Photographers Gerald Silver, Chad Slattery, &chard Springgate, Andrew Gulliford, Linda L. Bonar, Kim Despain, Hazel Johnson Graphic Design C. Nina Cutrubus

TYPO~~ Tracy Woodworth Stacy Glissmeyer Color Separations Color Litho Lab - Historical Photos Utah State Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society North Dakota State Historical Society South Dakota State Historical Society Colorado State Historical Society Fort Douglas Museum

Individuals interested in submitting manuscript for publication please mail to University Services, 1159 East Second Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103. Publisher assumes no responsibility for manuscripts or art not accepted. Postage and addressed envelope must accompany material if return is requested. For further information call (801) 532-3361.

Utah Preservation/Restoration 1981 Volume I11

CONTENTS

The Salt Lake Temple-A

Monument to a People

by Charles Mark Hamilton Louis Comfort Tiffany: Stained Glass in Utah

ON THE COVER: THE SALT LAKE LDS TEMPLE Salt Lake City, Utah The Salt Lake Temple, long the symbol of Mormonism to the world, began as a verbal description and then a quick sketch on an office slate. Brigham Young first envisioned it as an adobe and freestone monument before he was ~ersuadedto build it of granite from a newlv found outcrop. He instructed the ~huich membership that it was designed and would be built to stand for a thousand years. For forty years, from 1853 to 1893. the T e m ~ l was e under construction and the watchful eyes of three successive Church presidents and five architects. The result was a close adherence to the original exterior plans but with drastic changes being made to the interior layout and movement.

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by Joyce Athay janetski Fort Douglas: A Story of Survival

by Cindy Vail Seasons in the Wind with Larry Boyce

by Ken Huse Recreating the Victorian Ceiling

by Barbara Murphy Country School Legacy

by Andrew Gulliford Early Utah Schools

by Scott B. Birkinshaw The Influence of the Scots Stonemasons in Beaver, Utah

by Linda I.. Bonar Looting Our Past

by Frank H. Adams Understanding the Past Through Pick and Shovel

by Wilson Martin and Bruce Hawkins Rebirth of a Hotel

by Frank H. Adams Denver & Rio Grande Depot

by Larry Jones Preservation Economics: Einer Nielson Field House Rehabilitated

by Wilson Martin A Process for Duplicating Castings for Historical Buildings

by Charles E. Edwards, D. D. S. Archaeological Heritage: An Example of Preservation by Isolation

by James Dykman

The exterior imagery of the Salt Lake Temple forms a six-level symbolic program equal in complexity to a medieval cathedral. Young was responsible for the program but was assisted by Orson Pratt. The latter's involvement is evident from an 1878 plan wed to plot that year's lunar cycle in preparation for the laying offify moon stones on the corresponding buttresses of the Temple.

THE SAL'T LAKE TEMPLE

by Charles Mark Hamilton or nearly a century, the Salt Lake Temple (1853-93) has stood as the visual symbol of Mormonism and still figures prominently in the publications of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet the original intent of its designers and the heritage left by those who sacrificed to build it have all but been forgotten.

Within houts of the Mormons' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Brigham Young selected the future site of the Temple. The apparent urgency was short-lived, however, for it would take another six years before construction would begin and another forty years to bring it to completion.

During the interim, many people would be involved in the preparation of the constantly evolving design of the Temple--Church presidents as well as architects-but the key to the complex architectural history of the Salt Lake Temple is Brigham Young.

The architectural origin of the Salt Lake Temple lies with the sum total of Young's experiences. The formulation of its design began with his occupation as a joiner-glazier and his novice attempts at architectural planning.

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Then his conversion to Mormonism and subsequent missionary labors within the eastern United States brought him into contact with American architecture. But America's best proved unworthy when compared t o the architectural monuments Young visited during his missionary stay in England. With great care, he observed English architecture and purchased guides to remind him of his experiences.

Of the many building types of varied stylistic periods that he visited, he developed a romantic attachment to medieval architecture. So im~ressed was he with it that in an efforito ensure a similar style in his design for the Temple, he sent his architect, Truman Osbom Angell, Sr., to England in the hopes that he too could learn from the "ancients". European originals, rather than second-hand American neo-Gothic examples, were the primary inspiration for the architectural concept of the Salt Lake Tem~le.

Young gave Angell, Sr., enough specific information concerning his design concept that it would have been difficult for any other style than "Gothic-Gothic adaptation" to

emerge. Angell was not alone in the attempt to give clarity to Young's concept. William Ward, Jr., an English trained Gothic Revivalist architect, was appointed to be his assistant. Together they were able to bring to fruition Young's proposal.

These plans, however, were not immune to alterations. Young's successors, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, permitted changes to be made. but not without resistance. The individual opposed to the alterations was Angell, Sr. The irony was that his son, Truman Osbom Angell, Jr., whom he had appointed as his assistant, was the one responsible for making the requested changes.

Modifications were made that resulted in the near complete reconfiguration of the Temple's interior.

Angell, Jr., succeeded his father as Temple architect, but was removed from that position over a disagreement with Church authorities. He was immediately replaced by Joseph Don Carlos Youne. who was the architect at the time of ti; Temple's completion in 1893.

When completed, the Salt Lake Temple became the symbol of Mormonism's triumph over adversity.

Pratt was the only person capable of making these observations, for in 1869 an adobe and wood astronomical observatory was constructed on the southeast corner of the Temple Block for his use. The observatory remained on the site until it was razed in 1909. His instruments are now in the possession of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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MONUMENT TO A PEOPLE

Young saw it as a means to rally the strength of his people during times of hardship by emphasizing direction and purpose of the Church community.

Ultimatelv. , , he envisioned it as a permanent device for reminding the faithful of the Church of their responsibilities to themselves and God. Unfortunately, the knowledge of the Temple's complex symbolic program died with Young and his close associates. Those who were assembled o n the day of dedication possessed only a vague understanding of the meaning that Young attached to it.

Contemporary Mormonism has even begun to lose sight of its historical significance because it has forgotten its symbolic intent.

Enough pieces of the puzzle remain to reconstruct and interpret Young's iconographic program. The key lies with specific statements made by his architect, his close association with Orson Pratt, and Mormon doctrine and practice. What emerges is a coherent and comprehensive six-level iconographic system.

Because the Salt Lake Temple functioned strictly as sacred space, it played a vital role in the community.

Its sacred nature and geographical

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location were central to the Mormon doctrine of gathering. The Church's removal to the Great Basin region was seen as fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that the Lord's people would be "established in the tops of the mountains." Central to Isaiah's prophecy was "the house of the God of Jacob." To Mormons, this refers to the ;Temple where one is taught the fullness of the doctrines of Christ and receives the ordinances necessary to dwell with God. The prophetic sanctity of the Temple was reinforced when Young set aside ten acres for the Temple Block.

The T e m ~ l was e sited on the east-west axis of the square, a location that gave physical prominence over its surroundings. To further isolate the Temple from any physical and environmental encroachment by the city, Young had a fifteen-foot adobe and sandstone wall constructed around its verimeter with four axial entrances. he Temple Block became the center or hub of the c i t y - a city that Young saw as a theocratic center of Mormonism. Although historic conditions prevented Salt Lake City from becoming a theocratically governed city, the Salt Lake Temple

remains the theocratic center of Mormonism.

Because of its apparent historical significance and function as an alministrative center, the Salt Lake Temple has been spared the excessive modernization suffered by other temples. The close proximity of more efficient "worker" temvles hasnfurther eased this pressure. -at changes that have been made are largely sympathetic to the building. The LDS Church has gone to great lengths to ensure its structural integrity and maintain the original craftsmanship of its interior and exterior finish.

Editors' Note University Services is proud to announce the forthcomingpublication of The Salt Lake Temple-A Monument to a People. It is the fi7St architectural monograph on t k most important building within Mormonism. The exhaustive study is based on primary documents made available by the WS Church, other repositories, and individuals. T k lucid text is profusely ihtrated with diagrams and

THE MEN WHO INSPIRED AND LAID THE TECHNICAL GROUNDWORK FOR THE SALT LAKE TEMPLE

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righam Young sketched his design concept for the Salt Lake Temple on an office slate for his architect and assistant and then asked them to refine it. The design proposal represented the sum total of his personal experiences as a joiner-glazier and an astute observer of architecture. He then synthesized his experiences with an encompassing theosophical perspective to arrive at a visual statement of Mormon belief.

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ruman Osbom Angell, Sr., was appointed architect of the Salt Lake Temple by his brother-in-law Brigham Young. He held that position until his death in 1887, when the responsibility passed to his son Truman Osborn Angell, Jr. Angell, Jr., was subsequently released over a wage dispute, to be replaced by Joseph Don Carlos Young, who saw the Temple to its completion in 1893.

illiam Ward, Jr., a young English convert and architect, acted as assistant to Angell, Sr., during the design phase of the Salt Lake Temple. His training made him more qualified than his overseer, to the point that a year before the Temple's completion, it was rumored by some that Ward, Jr., not Angell, Sr., was responsible for the Temple's design. The family still holds to this belief even though Ward never admitted to it in public.

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he architectural and sculptural studio of William Ward, Jr., was located north of Temple Square. He received numerous commissions which include the Utah State Seal in the Washington Monument, the lion atop the entrance portico of the Lion House, and numerous gravestones in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

The above are the only known existing photographs of Ward and his studio, courtesy of Sadie Ogden of Provo, Utah.

Main body of the Salt Lake Temple.

(Above) The rich detail of the original exteriorprogram is evident in the south and east elevations of the Salt Lake Temple. The apparent detail is attributable to the type of building material that Young expected to use. He proposed that it be constructed with an inner core of adobe with a protective exterior veneer offreestone. Thefine grain freestone was capable of taking such detail; but Wilford Woodrujjpersuaded Young to use granite, which resulted in the loss of detail.

(Opposite page) The forty-year period of construction saw numerous changes in the design of the Temple's interior. Young's proposed had concept was drastically altered by Truman 0.Angell, F.,into its present configuration. This century has seen little change to the interior except to the Terrestrial room, lighting, and the shrouding of the beauty of the natural woods with paint. Fortunately, it has been spared excessive and tasteless modernization, which has preserved the essential beauties of pioneer craftsmanshipand sacrifice.

Dedicatory inscription on east center tower.

Alpha and Omega inscription with clasped-hand motif.

Transverse section of the Salt Lake Temple, ca. 1885.

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1878 Plan sequence of moon-stones.

Temple Square as it appeared in 1893.

The laying of the cupstone of the Salt Lake Temple, April 6, 1892.

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Salt Lake LDS Temple showing Pratt's observatory.

Orson Pratt, considered by his contemporaries to be one of the world's l e d n g mathematicians and astronomers, held popularly attended lectures on astronomy in the Tabernacle fqr the Church membership. His lectures and their subsequent publication in the Deseret News gave the Saints a knowledge of the order of our solar system and the universe, particularly as it pertained to the Church's docrrinal understanding of the earth's relationship to the order of God's creations. So important were his s t d e s thnt an adobe and wood astronomical observatory was constructedfor him on the southeast comer of the Temple Block. It was from his observatorv that the lunar obserwationsfor the Temple's moon-stones were made in 1878.

Interior of Pratt's observatory, ca. 1847.

The Tabernacle was the only permanent building on the Temple Black to be completed before Young's &ath in 1877. Though it is worldrenowned fur its acoustics, when it was dedicated in 1867 only a few of the many who were assembled were able to hear Young's inaugural address. The solution was the &tion of a detached gallery.

In 1877 the old adobe Tabernacle at the southwest corner ofthe Temple Block was razed to make way for a new multi-use building. The discarded stone from the Salt Lake Temple was used to construct the new Assembly Hall in a Victorian Gothic style, but its Gothic exterior is belied by a non-vaulted classically appointed interior.

The New Assembly Hall from the northeast.

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The interior of the New Assembly Hall looking west.

All photographs and plans presented i n this article are by permission o f Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints, including several from the collection o f Gerald photographer.

The sculptural niches on either side of the east and west central towers go unnoticed by the casual observer. Yet the eastern niches were designed, and housed at o w time bronze figures of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum.

The histoncal representations were removed from the niches and placed on plinths on the south lam.

W. Silver,

Charles Mark Hamilton holds a Ph. D. in Architectural History from Ohio State University, and is presently an associate professor of Architectural History at Brigham Young University. He has written several articles andprofessional papers on the Salt Lake Temple and is currently'wmking on The Salt Lake Temple-A Monument to a People, to be published later this year.

INTERIOR TIFFANY STAINED GLASS WINDOWS OF THE SALT LAKE TEMPLE CREATED AND INSTALLED PRIOR TO THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Adurn and Eve Exl~ulstonfrom the Gu~den

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY: STAINED GLASS IN UTAH

3 1 Detuil ofAngrl Detail of Adum and Eve

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by Joyce Athay Janetski irtually unidentified by art and architectural historians, as well as lay viewers, are Utah's several magnificent stained glass windows made by the famed decorating firm of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Some of the earliest work of the New York company in colored glass and lead is housed in the Salt Lake Temple, installed in 1893. St. Marks Episcopal Cathedral, located several blocks from the Mormon Temple, was adorned with Tiffany masterpieces in 1916 during the height of stained glass popularity.

These windows represent a strong heritage of an ancient craft revived by the scientific and creative genius of nineteenth century men. The lost techniques and pot-metal color formulas so crucial to the success of medieval colored glass were discovered when a renewed interest in Gothic art and architecture pushed its admirers to experimentation.

Augustus W. N. Pugin, an English architect, prompted the return to the principles of quality and practicality found in the Gothic architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Gothic Revival, turning the tide in English and American art and architecture, began in 1836 with Pugin's influence in the design of the Houses of Parliament.

A child of the Gothic Revival, the Arts and Crafts Movement was born fifty years later on this same English soil, proving powerful in the development of American stained glass. Fathered by William Morris and 'Lfriend~," the Movement was an artistic devotion to a romantic Gothic England. Morris founded his famous firm in 1861, producing, among many decorative arts, stained glass.

Morris and the artists associated with him revresented the culmination of a growing development at the time.

Success in recreating "antique glass" had been reached asearly as 1811 and the demand for stained glass in church

"The Memorial Window" detail in windowpainted glass.

architecture was established when Morris made his first aesthetic impression. Indeed, his own firm owed much to the united talents of scientist, colorist, designer, and craftsman.

The joint efforts of Morris' employees produced the windows which would set off the vogue of stained glass for sixty years in England and America. America was particularly receptive to the integrities of the craft rediscovered during the Arts and Crafts Movement. First, it was a country untainted by the corruption of the craft. The humble as well as puritanical beginnings of the United States had thwarted the use of stained glass at a time when it was better off thwarted.

The stained glass of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a sham to the craft, being overpainted and

lacking or misusing the lead line.

Secondly, the United States met the boom in religion rising in the first half of the nineteenth century with the economic prosperity of the second half of that century to produce a surge in ecclesiastical building during the period of the Arts and Crafts Movement and thereafter. It welcomed the Gothic Revival (albeit later than did England) with opened arms into its church designs.

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), perhaps more than any other American individual or company, responded most completely to the demand for quality (and a quantity of) stained glass at this time.

The son of the famous New York jeweler, he soon replaced his love of painting with that of art glass. While

the American John LaFarge ( 1836-1906) is generally credited with the invention of the opaque "opal" glass, taking out patent rights for its manufacture, it was Tiffany and his associates who, under LaFarge's patent, expanded its development.

Opening a glasshouse in 1878, he combined the use of American opal glass with antique glass, publicizing and popularizing his achievements. His Favrile glass with its iridescent and opalescent qualities, reflecting the metallic iridescence of long-buried Roman glass, highly prized in the numerous vases and tablewares he produced, was first used in windows in 1880. He remained in Brooklyn for thirteen years perfecting stained glass for windows.

While giving more life to stained glass than it had had in ages, Tiffany also carried out the basic functions of stained glass-to illustrate pictorially Christian doctrine and Biblical stories.

Commercial art glass companies, catering to a public wanting "Tiffany glass," produced "canned patterns" and copies of the original Tiffany work, made available through mail-order catalogues.

Although most of the stained glass in Utah fa116 into this latter category, some of the first windows installed in the state's architecture are made bv the leading company directed by Tiffany.

Limited to the views of "worthy" members of the Latter-day Saint or Mormon Church, several windows with the Mormon Salt Lake Temple boast the Tiffany artistry. Though themselves euarded from the outside world, the windows produced a precedent in church-decoration which spread outside the Temple, touching many Mormon chapels and tabernacles.

Perhaps the most influential Tiffany window in the Temple is the continued

Angel Moroni andlose~hSmith

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TIFFANY STAlNED GLASS WINDOWS, STAINED GLASS continuedfrom page 23 will kindly make such corrections as are necessary to make this picture in glass as perfect apiece ofwork as can be done. W e will be pleased to get a sketch of this &sign at your earliest convenience. With this sketch please send an approximate cost of such a piece of work.

Also please return the sketches you have, as there are other parties who wish to see them as they intend donating some of this kind of work to embellish our Temple.

Respectfully J. D. C. Young Architect per C. C. Bywater Supt Machinery Temple Block Supplemental . . .Again: it is urgent that the sketch of Scene be sent as soon as possible in order to approve, if all is satisfactory, and

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retume with order to execute the work, as it is required to put in position by April 6"/93 when the dedicatory services of The Temple will be held.

J. D. C. Young per C. C. Bywater As to the identity of the original designer of the "sketch of this vision," it should be noted that a sketch of the window is requested from Tiffanys.

This would indicate that an artist from the New York studio designed the window.

The donor of the window is claimed by his descendants to be John R. Winder, a Councelor in the First Presidency of the Church. A color-tinted photograph of the window, in the possession of a family member, bears Winder's name and a

copyright date of 1893, supporting this early installation.

The Tiffany First Vision window inspired more than just repeated likenesses. As alluded to in the Young letter to Tiffany, there was a desire on the part of some members of the Church to donate further works to the Temple. A round window over six feet in diameter dramatically portrays Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden by an angel. Nearby, Joseph Smith is shown in stained glass receiving sacred plates or records from the Angel Moroni. A fourth window, installed as a dedication to the Temple itself and known as "The Memorial Window," displays the Temple building magnificently in painted iridescent glass and lead. Other floral, decorative windows delight the eye,

One of the few stainedglass windows In the Sult Lake Templr not made by Tiffany. This window ulas desikmed and created by Bennett Paint and Glass.

STAINED GLASS

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First Vision window. Installed in 1893, it shows the young Prophet Joseph Smith receiving a vision of the Godhead. This portrayal had been repeated in stained glass many times within and outside of the state. Bearing no Tiffany signature (which was commonly excluded on many of Tiffany's windows), documentation must support the window's authorship.

A letter handwritten and signed by "John D. C. Young, Architect" ordering the First Vision window from "Tiffany & Co. Art Glass Manufacturers" sheds light on the origins of this window. Dated "Sept 20th 1892," just months before the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, the letter reads:

Gentlemen: W h e n your Mr. CouLson was here a few months ago, the committee appointed to determine the character and extent of ornamental and artistic work to be done in the Temple had not arrived at my decision as to whether Art Glass would be employed or not. Since that time the matter has been reconsidered. It is now decided to have some o.f your work to adorne the interior of this magestic Edifice and a subject has been selectedfor your artist to sketch out, and submit for approval. The subject is the first vision of the Prophet loseph Smith. This vision was received early in the spnng of 1820 i n . . . N e w York when he was in the 15th year of his age. The scene which this remarkable "Seeker after God" I will proceed to a

describe as graphically as I can. . . [Young proceeds with a lengthy account of the vision and a description of the desired scene.] . . . Of course it is understood that such perfection of designand executionis

expected only within the limits of artistic knowledge and mechanical possibilities. . . . I enclose you a tracing of a sketch of the [room] where this picture is togo. . . . [I trust that I have] clothed the conceptions of this heavenly vision in such language as will enable your artists to grasp the scope ofthe subject. I f you discover any defects in the description here given, you

continued

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ST. MARKS CATHEDRAL straying from the pictorial function of the other Tiffany windows in the Temple.

Additional evidence of the origin of these windows is found in A Partial List of Windows, published in 1910 by the Tiffany Company. In this booklet a notation is made under Salt Lake City, Utah, of "Memorial Windows, A Series of Historical Subjects [and] Ornamental Windows." Though vague, the reference is important for the sake of documentation.

A leaded signature reading "TIFFANY STUDIOS N.Y. 1916" supports the Tiffany origins of windows in St. Marks Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake City. Although it was completed in 1871, the design of Richard Upjohn (whose work was crucial in popularizing the use of

stained glass in American churches), St. Marks did not begin to install Tiffany windows until the twentieth ~ t . ' ~ e o isr depicted ~e in a large panel at the end of the east transept.

The window. donated bv Harriet L. and Tames A: Miner, bears the only signature of the four Tiffany windows in the chapel.

Two windows flank the high altar.

On the right is a scene of Christ appearing to disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Tiffany product was installed as a memorial to Utah's third Episcopal Bishop, Franklin Spencer Spalding, after a fire in 1935 destroyed a preceding window in that location.

A n angel appears to women at the empty sepulcher of Christ in a window donated by May Bishop Thompson,

situated to the left of the altar.

A popular subject for stained glass, the Annunciation is pictured in a window donated by the Bancroft family in memorial to Mary Baird Bancroft, who died in 1913. This window is set in the west wall of the nave.

Though the original valuations of Utah's Tiffany windows are yet to be learned by modern researchers, the pricelessness of these masterpieces is obvious to the observer. Usually considered the best in stained glass production, the windows of Louis Comfort Tiffany remain jewels in Utah's architecture.

Joyce A t b y Janetski received her master's degree from the University of Utah witha thesis on Mormon Stained Glass in Utah. She has also written several artichs on the subject.

FORT DOUGLAS:

by Cindy Vail

Fort Llouglas received heavy local news coverage in Salt Lake City for several years while military officials debated its closing. The struggle may now be over; the post may remain an active military installation and accommodate other federal offices as well. This brief historical photo essay should convey something of its history and significance and explain why the post is a national historic landmark and is lis tea on the Nationdl Register of Historic Places.

The uniform of the 1860s worn by the Sergeant of the Cavalry; the same type of uniform worn by Colonel Connor's California Volunteers. The uniform was mainly for show, even though the shoulder scales were &signed to ward off sword blows.

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Acknowledgment Special thanks are extended to Major General Michael Kauffman, Colonel Franklyn S. Nelson (U. S. Army Ret.), Don De Vere, Wilson Martin, Dr. Henry Whiteside, and Tracy Woodworthfor their expertise and time in assisting with the Fort Douglas article.

n 1861, the pressing problem of southern secession forced the War Department to withdraw some early occupation forces from Utah.

However, President Abraham Lincoln's administration remained uneasy about Mormon intentions and Indian attacks which could close the overland communication and transportation routes. Consequently the War Department ordered General George Wright, Commander of the Department of the Pacific, to protect telegraph lines, mail routes, and immigration trails in Utah, Nevada, and California, and in mid-1862 General Wright sent Colonel Patrick E. Connor to Utah with approximately 750 California Volunteers. They reached Utah in September and, after reconnoitering the surrounding area,

situated themselves on a rise in the Wasatch foothills only a few miles east of the Mormon capital. In October the new post was officially christened Camp Douglas in honor of Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

Because the company had arrived late in the year, they hastened to erect temporary winter quarters. These consisted of ten covered dugouts for enlisted men and log adobe-covered dugouts for the officers. In the spring of 1863, more permanent quarters, mostly of frame, were constructed.

Among them were eleven barracks, eight officers' residences, twelve dwellings for married officers, and a hospital.

Shortly after arriving, Connor turned his attention to the Indian problem. Bands of Shoshonis,

A STORY OF SURVIVAL

Oc;,L;r 22, 1861, afe~,;,ople on Salt Lake City's main ;;,cet gathered for the joining of the transcontinential telegraph.

Bannocks, and Utes had harrassed the Overland Mail and tormented miners for years in northern Utah and southern Idaho. In January of 1863 Connor dispatched a force to pursue the militant Shoshoni leader, Bear Hunter. Connor's forces found him and his party encamped in a ravine near Bear River, 140 miles north of Salt Lake City. O n January 27th, shortly after daybreak, the soldiers attacked.

When fighting ended in mid-morning, 224 Shoshoni men, women, and children lay dead on the battlefield.

Fourteen of Connor's men died in action in addition to 79 soldiers disabled due to the subzero temperatures. These were the first men buried in the Fort's cemetery and their graves are marked by a monument constructed in their honor. The War

Major General Connor, founder of Fort Douglas early in his

career when he was a district commander of troops in Utah and Wyoming.

Department recognized Connor for his success in this bloody episode by promoting him to the rank of Brigadier General.

During the next few months, lesser encounters with the Utes, Bannocks, and other bands were also fought, and in the fall Connor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs James D. Doty made peace with almost all of the Indians in the territory. This relative calm prevailed until the Blackhawk War of 1865. Less significant outbreaks occurred periodically through the 1880s.

During this period of calm, General Connor turned his attention to the Mormons, whom he disliked intensely.

Although unable to marshal any proof, he was convinced they had encouraged the Indian depredations. Furthermore,

he was concerned about the outrageously high prices that his command had to pay for supplies purchased from the Saints.

General Connor believed the best way to deal with the Saints would be to develop mining in the Salt Lake City Valley and surrounding areas in order to encourage non-Mormon, "gentile" immigration. Mineral discoveries by his soldiers led to the Jordan Silver Mining Company in the West Mountain Quartz District. These were Utah's first recorded mining claims and first formally organized mining district.

Other discoveries followed, and Connor concluded the so-called Mormon problem would be solved if the territory's mineral resources were properly exploited and gentile miners encouraged to immigrate. continued

Mining during the 1860s that had been instigated by Major General Connor.

World War 1 German PO Ws incarcerated in Fort Douglas. Bfferent from POWs ca~turedin battle, these men were enemy aliens, recent immigrants, and anarchists.

FORT DOUGLAS continued from page 27 Despite vigorous direction of these efforts from Camp Douglas, Connor never realized his dream of submerging the Mormons in a sea of gentiles. His post newspaper, The Daily Union Vedette, however, continued in operation until November of 1867-the first successful non-Mormon newspaper, and by 1864 the first daily newspaper in the territory.

After the Civil War, almost all the California Volunteers were released from service and in 1866 the 18th Infantry moved into Camp Douglas.

Early in the 1870s the resumvtion of 1ndisn difficulties lent the new importance and in 1874 the Army undertook a reconstruction program there. It was during this period that the Fort was completely rebuilt with red

sandstone and in 1878 was given the new name of Fort Douglas. Many of the buildings present today were erected at this time.

When the railroads were further extended into the Mountain West in the 1880s, the Army began to concentrate its forces at a number of larger posts. Upon the recommendation of General George Crook and General Philip H. Sheridan, the War Department made Fort Douglas one of the principal military installations in the Central Rockies. It absorbed many garrisons, including those of Fort Hall in Idaho and ~ o r t i ~ h o r n b uand r ~ hCameron in Utah. In 1884 several frame structures were erected to house the additional personnel. The number of men at the post rose again when the 12th Infantry

The interior of the POW barracks at Fort Douglas. c. 1918.

The second post hospital (c. 1900) which replaced the adobe structure.

was assigned there in 1902. Several new barracks, a post exchange, and a new hosuital were erected to accommodate the new residents.

Activity at Fort Douglas peaked during World War I. Between four and five thousand recruits arrived for combat training, but perhaps the most unusual wartime inhabitants of the post were the 33 1 German prisoners of war incarcerated in the frame barracks surrounded by barbed wire. Headstones in the cemeterv testifv that some of these urisoners did not live to return to their Aative land after the war.

The Army considered abandoning the post when activity was curtailed following World War I. Pending legislation did not pass, however, and in 1922 Fort Douglas began to play a new role. In 1933, Civilian

Conservation Corps (CCC) was established at Fort Douglas, enrolling 6,000 men in forestry and soil conservation, land improvement, and construction of improvements in national and state parks. World War I1 brought another 1,000men to the Fort in 1943. Once again the camp held prisoners of war, including about 250 Italian soldiers.

After World War I1 activity at the post declined, and in 1964 the post again fell under threat of closure. The likelihood ebbed and flowed over the next several years, but in 1978 the Army announced that it was going to close Fort Douglas. Undersecretary of the Army Allen Gibbs believed that by closing old military bases the Army could reduce spending. Major General Michael Kauffman, now out of uniform

but a former commander of the 96th Infantry Division, had been associated with the Fort before World War I1 as a young lieutenant. As current director of the Fort Museum, General Kauffman began to organize the Fort Douglas Preservation Association for the express purpose of preserving this piece of Utah's heritage.

The Association was born of urgency, and members immediately went to work realizing its objectives: "(1) Develop a study group and issue position papers; (2) Make public aware of our recommendations; (3) Keep our congressional delegation informed; (4) Keep our members informed; (5) Develop alternative plans to retain the fort. " continued

Barrack Row c. 1880. Infantry barracks. Second building currently houses the Fort Doughs Museum.

1894 Brule Sioux of 1 Company 16th Infantry, the first non-white infantry of the U.S. Amy. This was an experiment hoped to introduce the Indians to the white man's culture as well as some sort of a trade.

I

irrcplaceahle; It's gut some ot rhc. tincst example:: of Quartcrrn;istcr L'~crc)riar~ arch~trcturc:hat can be tound ; ~ n ~ p l a cItc .1s also the hnmc ot tllc Amiy Reserve cc)n-rponc.nt.jIn Lltah. ~ Id;rllo, anJ L4orltarla. l\;'c i e l ~I t \ V J rhc best interest of the n.~tion;tlilcir.l~::r* t,) rer,>ln the p o ~ t . " The rti;)rts of Genc.r,~lK;ii~ttm:in ,lnJ tllc A j x ) c i ~ t ~IcLl o ~li) l .{ ,'c~n~r~.shional l n v c ~ r ~ g , > t ithe\ nt~; >tronglyrciommcn,icd t h ; ~tllc t post 1'2 r c.t ; ~ i l ~ v dtrc i l to ~ . t . o n r ~ n' ~ ~ ni ~d. ~ i c n , ~ reasons. Meetings were held with congressional delegations to explain the economics of reuse. A task force of four very knowledgeable retired military personnel was assembled to assist in this project: Major General George Holm, former commander of t.he Tooele Army Depot; Colonel Floyd D.Williams, with 30 years of service including base closures for the Pentagon; Colonel Bob Muldrow , a statistical expert who conr.manded Dugway Proving Ground and the Deseret-Test Center; and Major Ryron H. Engh, a retired Air Force Off~cer.

The work of these four men, Major General Kauffman, and the Association resulted in the recently announced position by Utah's Setrator Jake Garn to keep the post open.

The history of the post was considered so important tha.t Fort Douglas was established as one of the first historic districts in Utah. The buildings on the post represent five periods of constructiun, dating from 1864 to 1931, including red sandstone, frame, and brick structures. Some of the most significant buildings are the sandstone officers' duplexes, which were constructed around 1876.

Since its establishment in 1862 Fort Douglas has faced many challenges in its quest for survival, the most recent of which was the call for its closure by the Department of the Army. Due to the perseverance of citizen groups, active and retired military personnel, and members of the United States Congress, Fort Douglas has once again appeared to have weathered the threat of closure. By doing so the preservation of the Fort's distinct history and character contained in this many-faceted national landmark will remain.

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Post Guurdhouse c. 1885

Looking south toward the headquarters building which is presently the Ofjicers Club.

FORT D O U G U S continued from page 3 1

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The front page of T H E DAILY V E D E T T E , the first non-Mormon newspaper started by Major General Connor. It was so successful that by 1864 it became the first daily newspaper in the territory.

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District Commanders Quarters c. 1865.

Officers Duplex c. 1865.

SEASONS IN THE WIND WITH LARRY BOYCE A Tribute to the Bicycling Impresario of the Painted Ceiling

By Ken Huse

W

34

hile bicycling west between Yucca and Lucerne Valleys, within the vast reaches of the Mojave Desert of southern California, I felt drizzle from the dark clouds hovering in the morning skies. I hadn't expected to encounter rain in southern California.

Nor had I anticipated encountering another bicycling tourist on a lost expanse in the Mojave Desert. As I wheeled my way to the road's vanishing point on the horizon, I became aware of another foolish cyclist heading toward me in the rain. Finally the gap between us closed, and we exchanged fleeting introductions.

The threatening clouds drove us to some nearby granite monoliths and their overhanging shelter. Windblown rain swept by us as I became acquainted with the Captain of Industry and Advisor to the P o.~ e. otherwise . known as the Czar of Restoration. I was a bit taken aback, I'll confide. The Mojave was not the place I expected to meet a czar. Garbed in handmade cycling wear of his own design and mustachioed in grand Victorian manner, the Captain of Industry laid his scheme on me.

What was I to think? From a saddlebag he unsheathed a folio bulging with promotional regalia.

Newspaper clippings, magazines, and photographs were neatly displayed before me, all meant to entice bicycling tourists. Yes, this so-called Advisor had outright intentions of convincing me that I should drop what I was doing and bicvcle the West with him to learn his trade. He explained that he was the father of the rebirth of Victorian stenciling, a craft which involves selecting patterns from Victorian design books, cutting stencils to reproduce the patterns, and stenciling them on ceilings. He further explained

that Victorian stenciling- has not been used to any large extent since the economic catastrophe of the Depression.

The partnership which the Czar proposed was both attractive and perplexing. Many factors caused the dilemma: first, I had left mv friends and family in the Alexander ~ r c h i ~ e l of a~o southeast Alaska a few weeks earlier, fully intending on returning immediately following my thousand-mile bicycling trek through eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and southern California; second. I had made arrangementsto help build some condominiums for a more-than-fair wage in my hometown of Juneau;third, I couldn't help but hesitate about the partnership. How could one combine an Alaskan bush~ersonand a San Franciscan eccentric and expect to have an amiable affiliation? That was too much to expect. The partnership appeared too shaky to sacrifice close family and a good job.

O n the other hand, though, I couldn't shake the illusions of What more noble deed could .grandeur. , one do than to revive a lost craft?

Without question, it was a considerablv more aesthetic undertaking than building condominiums. All my life I had had artistic tendencies., vet I had never , found an economically feasible way to further any hidden potential.

Stenciling might be the answer. In addition, the thought of cycling was very attractive. What little cycling 1 had done already had put me in the best shape I'd known since high school football, and it would be nice to stay physically fit. The pros seemed to outweigh the cons.

Two weeks later the Captain called

me to affirm the tentative arrangement .. made in the granite enclave. Even though I was indecisive, I couldn't say no. The prospects were far too enticing; I had to at least try painting those ceilings. The date was set; we were to rendezvous in Salt Lake City around the first of lune.

A few weeks later I made the turn-east across the desolate wastelands of Nevada. After four long days in the saddle, I arrived in Salt Lake City at the foot of the supremely festooned Emanuel Kahn Mansion.

The 1890building possessed more than a fair share of towers, gables, and ornamentation. Steven T. Baird, one of the foremost restoration architects in the nation, purchased the Kahn Mansion in 1977 and has kept the edifice in a state of continuous restoration ever since.

The patterns had already been selected and the stencils had been cut for the rooms to be painted. Though repetitious and tedious, I found the craft quite satisfying. It opened my eyes to color as I had never seen it before. I became acquainted with the elaborate and varied characteristics of Victorian design, which was derived from worldwide influences. I became exposed to the philosophies of the British aesthetic movement, which the Victorians followed with unyielding fervor. And I likewise experienced an otherwise unknown element of the American culture.

What impressed me most about the painting gig, however, was the man behind it all, the Bicycling Impresario of the Painted Ceiling, Larry Boyce.

When I first arrived in Salt Lake Citv. I found him lying on the floor of the second parlor in the Kahn Mansion, lost in Victorian contemplation.

Larry Boyce, the BicyclingImpresario,and Ken Huse on a stopover in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming.

Staring at the ceiling, making one of many decisions regarding color choice, he seemed worlds away. I wondered if he would even recognize me. Suddenly he was on his feet, spewing out Victorian concepts of which I had not the slightest comprehension. Yet I was taken in by his friendly, verbose manner.

After a brief reacquaintance, we were on the streets for my first introduction to the Victorian motif.

Nomenclature filled my head: Modillions, entablatures, dentils, cartouches, Palladian window, rusticated stones, acanthus leaves, eggs and darts-the list seemed endless. In the days that followed, much was unfolded unto me by this master of the Victorian mode. I also came to learn just where Larry was coming from.

Larry's interest in the painted ceiling began ears ago. In 1968, at the age of twenty-two, he traveled to Europe with the chairman of the art department of Farleigh-Dickinson Universitv. At the Barberini Palace in Rome, Larry was fortunate to be able to climb multi-storied scaffolds and closely inspect the dazzling ceiling in the grand rotunda, painted by Pietro da Cortona in 1640. This experience planted in Larry's mind the seed of thought which later became a major factor in his revival of the craft of Victorian stenciling.

Sometime after his return from Europe, Larry headed west to explore.

Cyclingfromtown to town, he rode the circuitous labyrinth of the western highways, scrutinizing various structures in each city. His voluminous

storehouse of knowledge was born on these never-ending tours. After some 55,000 miles, the Victorian was, without doubt, his baby.

If ideology were not subject to reality, Larry would likely cycle the West for the whole of his existence.

But unfortunately, he had to periodically stop to secure funds to finance his nomadic adventures. He did not need large sums, just enough to keep his spindly wheels rolling down the highway. His fund-raising strategy was unique and easy: Larry made people an offer they couldn't refuse. He would walk up to any house and offer the homeowner forty hours of work for one dollar an hour plus room and board during the duration of his employment.

Thus he acquired the monetary sustenance needed to continue his transient lifestyle. In 1973 in San Francisco, on one such work experience, Larry had his first introduction to the painted ceiling.

Larry's patron had spent much time in New Orleans, one of the few cities where many stenciled ceilings can still be found. This inventive man suggested to Larry that he stencil his ceiling in like manner. This proposal triggered Larry's genius. He accepted the employment and went directly to the library. There he learned the history and methodology of Victorian stenciling. He was on his way!

After his first ceiling was painted, Larry continued to roam, but now his funds came from a wonderfully novel source. This new fount of employment afforded Larry an intrinsically eloquent existence. Rather than randomly selecting homes at which to stop, Larry knocked on the doors of the finest continued

35

Richard Reutlinger of San Francisco and Larry Boyce reviewing an 1886 pattern book of suggested Victorian designs. The elaborate design and final work of one room in this home are shown on pages 40 and 4 1.

Photograph by Chad SlatterylLos Angeles, California

SEASONS IN T H E WlND continuedfrom page 35

36

homes-Victorians, to be sure. He gained a resplendent and complete knowledge of the Victorian ideal because he was now able to dwell in the embellished rooms and halls which define its parameters.

Yet by the fall of 1977, Larry's aspirations to become a renowned ceiling painter were still inconsequential. He painted a ceiling here, a ceiling there, making just enough money to see him from town to town, much like before the acquisition ofhis new skill. It was at this time that a fateful incident occurred which was to profoundly enhance his impact on the Victorian world.

Denver On Larry was On his way the "Grand Army of the Republic" highway east of Tonopah, Nevada, when the wind suddenly became a visage in the form of a dusty cloud advancing toward him in temperamental bounds. He quickly pitched his handmade bivouac tent, climbed in, and sat tight for the lengthy duration of the dust storm. When the squall had subsided, an allergic reaction to the dust caused Larry's inner ear to close, and on pedalling out of the valley into the mountains he burst one eardrum and injured the other. He completed his painful journey to Denver but was to ride no flJrther for some time. The storm had

rendered him nearly deaf and without any desire to bicycle. This immobilization gave him the time needed to pass on his revived craft and establish his first firm.

In the spring of 1978, after his students had been sufficiently instructed and his hearing had returned, Larry rediscovered his interest in bicycling and was off to San Francisco to spread his Victorian obsession and establish his second firm.

But permanency and Larry Boyce are noncongenial companions. Thus it was upon his escape from San Francisco two years later that we met in the Mojave.

Through all these consequential experiences Larry has acquired a drive which is difficult for some to understand. He feels a certain duty to the West in that it gave him the painted ceiling. With gratuitous strokes of his paintbrush, guided by many elaborate stencils, he aspires to make the West sparkle as it once did in the days o f ~ i c t o r i a nsplendor.

I have witnessed firsthand Larry's total dedication to the craft. There have been times I've gone hungry because Larry designed a room beyond the limits of fruitful economic return.

He's even gone so far as to suggest working without wages in order to obtain the final word in design and color choice for a given parlor. He

approaches his craft with an almost over-zealous vigor, often without consideration for his personal well-being.

Larry is determined to see the painted ceiling become an established premise again. Since we met in April 1980, I have bicycled some 3,000 miles with him, and all the while he continues to promote his stenciled ceilings. From the back country of the Teton National Park in Wyoming to the cosmopolitan center of Aspen, Colorado. he has relentlesslv educated the unknowing tourist or resident about his artistic phenomenon. He is always enthusiastically willing to explain his craft, in much the same manner as he did upon our first meeting in the desert.

As I reflect back upon that day we met, I feel a deep gratitude for Larry's limitless generosity with his knowledge of the craft. Since that stormy day he has, without reservation, let loose of every trade secret so tha; I might carry the craft with me should our bicycle paths ever part. And so it is, with thanks, that I offer this tribute to a grand man of the West, to Larry Boyce, the father of the rebirth of Victorian stending.

continued

One of the more elaborately designed and stenciled rooms in the Armstrong Mansion, now owned by Steven T . Baird, Architect, Salt Lake City. The entire dining room, including walls and ceiling, were stenciled.

RECREATING THE VICTORIAN CEILING

by Barbara L. Murphy

Photograph by Richard SpinggatelSalt Lake City, Urah

(Abnue) The parlor of the Armstrong Mansion. The room to the right shows the cove in the Kahn Mansion, constructed in 1889, Salt Lake City. A circular pattern was selectedfor the stenciling because circles are easier to work into corners. The Kahn Mansion is now used for ofices and is owned by Steven T . Baird.

Photographs by RtchurclSpringguteISultLake C ~ t yUtah ,

RECREATZNG T H E V I C T O R I A N C E I L I N G continuedfiom page 37

W

hat does one talk about when making the acquaintance of another bicyclist in the midst of a rainstorm in the Mojave Desert? If you are Larry Boyce and Ken Huse (Larry's current partner), you talk about ceilings, or more specifically, how to turn a "pigsty whitewash" ceiling into something wonderful. These two extraordinary gentlemen have spent the past year traveling by bicycle to restore and stencil Victorian ceilings in SarrFrancisco, Sacramento, Denver, Salt Lake City, and numerous small towns throughout the western United States.

Larry Boyce's introduction to the art of ceiling painting came when he was asked to paint the ceilings of a friend's San Francisco home. Armed only with some pictures of stenciled

38

ceilings in New Orleans and a large dose of curiosity, Boyce headed for the local public library to discover the intricacies of the art. The research turned out to be quite simple, as the Victorians had la& out p i t e r n s so that thev could be easilv followed. T h e process itself, however, took a great deal of time and an even greater amount of patience.

Bovce acauired several Victorian books' and spent the next several years traveling throughout the West looking at buildings inside and out. During this time, he supported himself by painting and restoring damaged wallpaper and stencil patterns. He traced the existingpattern and cut the stencils needed to repair the damaged portion. In this way, he acquired extensive on-the-job

experience and a n invaluable firsthand knowledge of the stenciling done in the west. He became familiar with the tvves of stencils that were used. which ,patterns were used together, and the quality, intensity, and arrangement of colors used.

How does Boyce . vut this knowledge to use when he begins a new project, such as the beautiful Emmanuel Kahn House (678 South Temple) or the Armstrong Mansion (667 East 100 South) in Salt Lake City?

First, he looks for evidence of a Dattern.

If one is found, h e will usually try to recreate it. "When I recreate a pattern, I choose a series to go with it to fill in the other spaces, because one pattern alone wouldn't have been enough for a grand Victorian room," Boyce &

continued

VICTORIAN CEILING continued from page 38 explains. In addition to finding patterns that work together, he also is aware of the configuration of the room.

For example, the cove in the Kahn House had a very difficult configuration, so Boyce chose a circular pattern, explaining that circles are easier to weave into corners than the square patterns.

The overall patterns, like those often used on walls, are called powderings and come from the Gothic tradition. When the Gothics constructed buildings with stained glass, they noticed ;hat the sunlight would stream through the stained glass and make Datterns on the walls. These patterns would be a slight shade lighter or darker than the wall and were the inspiration for Victorian powderings.

Powderings are very effective for stenciling large areas because they can be done with a very large stencil pattern, covering the entire wall as if with wallpaper, and thus the work can be accomplished fairly rapidly.

In selecting patterns, the lighter, less intricate patterns are lower on the wall and become heavier or more complicated toward the ceiling.

Ceilings, however, should never be too distracting, says Boyce. They should be "entertaining, like clouds in the sky, but if they'reVtoodynamic, they're too distracting."

The selection of color is another important facet of this art. For instance, in the Armstrong Mansion, Boyce chose a very dark red for the dining room. "Victorians believed that dining rooms should be very warm and womb-like to bring people close together," he explained. Because they specialized in many-course dinners, Victorians would sit in that dark cozy room for hours. Not every room should be dark and cozy necessarily, but the dining rooms almost always should be.

In addition, colors have weight: the darker the color. the heavier it is. and the weight should increase from ceiling to floor.

When selecting colors, Boyce tends toward earth tones because it is easier to make earth colors work together.

Even when he is using a red, he will add a little bit of yellow oxide or burnt sienna to make it earthier. While it is very difficult to make man-made colors work together, it is almost impossible to make a mistake with earth tones.

Because thev are made of the earth, they are longer lasting. Whereas most artificial colors will change over a period of time, earth tones should be

40

The home of Richard Reutlinger, former Vice President and co-founder of the Victorian Alliance in San Francisco, is recognized as the most complete and authentic Victorian restoration in the city. The room above shows the seating area of tile master bedroom.

The intricate design patterns used i n this room took 2,300 stencil applications.

Photogruphs by Chad SlatterylLos Angela, California

the same colors a hundred years from now as they are today.

Every room uses at least six colors-very often as many as ten-and each of these colors has to be interacting with every other one.

"Probably the most difficult part of the job is figuring out the color schemes so that all the colors are working together and not clashing," states Boyce.

Since Americans redesign their interiors every ten or fifteen years, the record of the Victorian interior has been severely altered. "Even among the authorities, a lot of people claim that the small buildings were very underdone inside and were whitewashed," Boyce explains. It is his belief, however, that they were exuberantly done. In his travels, he has come across numerous houses (like the

Hamel house in Georgetown, Colorado) that were very small, yet had very colorful and intricate interiors.

Boyce parallels this discussion about Victorian interiors with the recent discussion about the polychroming of Victorian exteriors.

For a long time, people thought that Victorian buildings were painted white or other neutral tones, but with the recent rise in popularity in restoring old houses, owners who have begun to carefully examine existing paint layers have found in most cases that turn-of-the-century houses were painted three or four colors.

One of the obstacles that Boyce runs up against periodically is convincing his clients not t o be afraid of using bold colors and intricate designs. His argument to these people

Larry Boyce shown with assistant Jim Hardy completing the stenciling of a room in the Van Voorhies Mansion, Socramento, California.

Larry was commissioned to design and stencil selected rooms by attorneys Steven R. and Pamela A. Bair. The VanVoorhiesMansion, one of the few remaining brick Victorian brownstone facade buildings in Sacramento, was purchuset+by the County of Sacramento in 1973 and structurally restored by Sacramento Heritage, Inc., in 1976. It was later purchased by the Bairs to house law offices.

goes something like this: "If you wanted a modem, you should have bought one; but you went out and bought a Victorian, so you're stuck with veiled silver drapes and all that stuff. It's wonderful, it's opulent, and when you live in one of these houses for a period of time, the whole rest of the world will turn into a slum; you won't even want to go out anymore because everything is white, white, white. As Christopher Dresser said, 'To consider the use of white, or gray and white, rather than a harmonious blend of colors, is as if to insist on melody in music to the exclusion of harmony.' " It is characteristic of the generosity of this young man that he has no secrets of the trade. His tremendous expertise is available to anyone who takes time to ask the questions. He will explain, for instance, that mylar has a longer life than the thinner oiled stencil board traditionally used for cutting stencil

patterns, or that he uses paint brushes rather than rollers because brushes have worked so well for him in the past that he sees no reason to test his luck.

He will demonstrate the tedious process of cutting intricate patterns with an exacto knife or how to recreate the patterns on graph paper in order to enlarge them for the room stencils.

Boyce readily admits that anyone can learn how to stencil if he or she has the patience and can stand the tedium.

He has trained many persons who have expressed an interest in his work. In fact, he foresees a time when he will go into a person's home, cut the stencils, mix the paints, and stencil a corner of the room, teaching the homeowner how to stencil in the process. Leaving the remainder of the room for the homeowner to complete, Boyce would pass along his knowledge yet leave the time-consuming painting to someone else.

One of the most exciting aspects of Boyce's work is seeing what most other people living today have not seen: proof of the spectacular design and rich colors used by our ancestors to decorate their homes. "I've cleaned off old layers of wallpaper and paint to find patterned papers, deep blue walls, or dark red walls at the bottom," says Boyce. People nowadays have never seen these colors and designs because they were painted or papered over beginning at the turn of the century.

Why does Larry Boyce take on the challenge of stenciling?Because, in his words; "I'm not a writer, so I can't write the history of the West. But in my work, as Lucius Beebe did by writing and chronicling the wealth of the West, I would like to recreate the rooms that the Victorians lived in and entertained in, so that people today can see how really wonderful their ancestors' era was. "

COUNTRY SCHOOL LEGACY

by Andrew Gulliford

READIN', WRITIN', A N D 'RITHMETIC Colorado, Kansas. Utah. Nevada.

Nebraska, wyoming, Nbrth Dakota, and South Dakota

I

F

or too long the historic preservation movement has focused on those houses, estates, and public buildings that utilized only the finest of materials to create architectural showpieces. With unlimited funds and the elevated taste of wealthy wives, mansions blossomed in the valleys and in the mountains.

Discriminating couples spent whole fortunes on walnut paneling, mahogany staircases, diamond dust mirrors, and room after room after room.

What of those immigrants who arrived on these shores to work for day wages, sleep in tents, and begin anew in the West? For them one room was enough-if it was a one-room school for their children.

Once the miners and the cowboys, the roustea-bouts and the sheepherders, the ranchers and the farmers, mariied and were committed to this soil, they realized that the future belonged to their children. The immierants had made the difficult from the old country. They came in waves across the Dakotas in lines of wagon trains across the prairie and often by train to the end of the railhead.

Only a few of them would rise to wealth, but their children would have unlimited opportunity, and education was the key to laying down successful roots.

The wealthy built mansions; the poor built schools. The cattle kings and the mining barons built castles of

hand-cut stone. Their employees often lived in crude bunkhouses, log cabins, or tents, and in manv cases school began in such inauspicious surroundings.

Italians. German-Russians.

Norwegians, Swedes, and other ethnic groups all believed in the importance of learning the language well and giving their children a better start.

From 1870 until 1950, the one-room school played a vital part in the settling of the American West.

Rural America was raised in a countrv school, and those values and traditions which make up our combined heritage were taught by teachers in isolated communities in the mountains and on vast sweeps of the plains.

In 1920,195,000one-room schools functioned in the United States. Now only 1,111one-room schools remain, and more than a third of them are in Nebraska. Although centralization and long-distance busing forced the consolidation of rural schools. the buildings - stand as silent testaments to a nation of immigrants bent on success.

Few people are aware of an architectural feature in their state's history that is absolutely pivotal to the development of rural western states.

Consequently those schools that are not burned or demolished are being destroyed by simple neglect and natural deterioration.

Architecturally the schools are as diverse as those who built them. All of them are made from whatever materials were at hand-wood, stone, logs, adobe. brick. and sod. The first ~ e b r d k schools a were little more than sod huts with dirt floors, crude doors, and leaky roofs. In one Kansas sod school, the teacher began stoking the wood stove only to have a snake fall out of the roof and land on a hot stove lid!

While in 1886 a sod schoolhouse in Custer County, Nebraska, was all the community could afford, by 1902 the citizens of Cando, North Dakota, had built a high school overwhelmingly beautiful in its design and massive in its proportions. The immigrants were here to stay.

The line blurs and the definitions blend as to what constitutes a countrv school, but the rationale is the same in every state. A community with a school was a community with a future.

Unlike the East where the settlers built churches first, in the West all manner of men were to be found who spoke a variety of languages and held quite different religious beliefs. Schools therefore took priority. continued

THE PROCESS OF AMERICANIZATION

COUNTRY SCHOOL LEGACY continuedfiom page 43 The process of Americanization took place in country schools. In the years from 1870 to 1875, schoolhouses were erected in Nebraska at the rate of approximately one each day. Charles H. Sloan, an early Nebraska congressman, stated:

The establishment of a country school at the crossroads, in a building just a little better than the average dwelling, has been many a pioneer community's first rriumph. There was found a touch of taste from every home, and also that community interest in the future welfare of neighbors and the keen zeal for our commonwealth and country. No wonder study was stimulated, tongues loosened, poets inspired, orators developed, and legislators made ambitious.

In Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska, a school was built in 1886 with walls of baled straw, a sod roof, and a dirt floor.

It was sixteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and seven feet high. Within two years cattle had devoured it.

Country schools represented the ultimate in utilitarian architecture.

Buildings often cost no more than a few hundred dollars in materials. All labor was donated, and school supplies were scavenged. In at least one Nevada mining camp, schoolchildren had the dubious distinction of sitting on abandoned dynamite kegs instead of desks!

The schools often moved around a great deal, too. As populations changed in farming or mining

communities, the school buildings, built without benefit of foundations, plumbing, or wiring, would be put on skids and moved to adjacent communities. Most of the moves met with the mutual approval of local school boards but occasionally clandestine moves occurred at night.

Children would walk to school the next day only to find their school building another mile or two down the road.

Stone schools such as the Thistle School in Utah, built of red sandstone, and many of the rock limestone schools in Kansas are not going anywhere. The Old Plymouth School in western Kansas did find its way to the Fort Hays State University campus, but not without a lot of student sweat and

TOOK PLACE IN COUNTRY SCHOOLS

several loads of stone on tandem-axle, four-ton, flatbed trucks. The settlers who built the school hauled the same limestone with teams and wagons.

The architecture of most country schools was strictly vernacular. Any special embellishment usually centered around the bell tower. The bell was essential not only to call children to school, but also if someone was lost or hurt or if a prairie fire was coming perilously close. Many mining camp residents rushed to the mine if the bell pealed ominously in the middle of the day. Women clutched their infants, and feared for the depth of the cave-in and the safety of their husbands.

But the school bell also rang at Christmas, and it was a constant source

of community pride. Many schools built simple roofs over the bells. Other schools had elaborate bell towers with ornate gingerbread woodwork or horizontal slats to keep the birds out.

The Paragon School at Gunnison, Colorado, not only has a large, separate bell tower, but also a Queen Anne-style turret with three curved windows.

In a building without electricity and with no budget for kerosene, lighting presented a serious problem.

Most schools therefore had windows on the east and the blackboard on the west. Some schools had windows on both sides, but after 1915 the notion prevailed that if light came from two sources students doing written work

would ruin their eyes. A few brave districts tackled the problem by putting windows to the north for a constant, even light, but the buildings must have been freezing cold in the winter.

Esther Cambell, 82, of Vernal, Utah, remembers it all. She started teaching in eastern Colorado in 1919 during a winter so fierce that children never left the proximity of the wood stove. She remembers vividly a bitter cold afternoon when two horses who sought shelter against the wind froze to death near the one-room school.

Esther taught for thirty-five years in the schools in Moffat County, Colorado, and only for the last five continued

School at Amherst, Buffalo County, Nebraska, ca. 1907

Photograph courtesy of Solomon D. Butcher Collection, Nebraska State Historical Society

Above: Sod School House, Logan County, Nebraska Photograph courtesy of Nebraska State Historical Society

Left: Riverside School west of Burwell, Nebraska Photograph by Andrew Gulliford

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Peach Valley Scho Colorado

L ah-

Photograph co

Peach Valley, 'Hazel Johnson

C O U N T R Y S C H O O L LEGACY continued from page 45

years did she have electricity. She was the last teacher at the Lodore School, 1945-46, near Dinosaur National Monument. The school is now on the National Register of Historic Sites.

One of her best years, however, was in a little log school located at the bottom of the Yampa River Canyon.

The school was built of logs on only three sides; the fourth side was a south-facing sheer canyon cliff. Esther says that the school was quite comfortable, as the south wall acted like a heat sink, and she only needed a small fire in the morning.

That was the school year 1942-43.

She had four student. from two families, and because of the snow on top she did not leave the canyon from October to mid-April.

As late as 1934, families in the Sandhill country of Nebraska built a

two-room sod high school. It was heated with "prairie coal" (dried cowchips), but it graduated eleven students who had the desire to further their education.

The structure is gone now, and even the site is undetermined, and river rafters going down the Yampa River hardly notice Esther's school. A significant chapter in the architectural historv of the American West is being ignored. The mansions are renovated and restored, but the immigrants only needed one room.

Andrew GuUiford is project director for an eight-state National Endowment for the Humanities $275,000grant titled "Country School Legacy: Hummities on the Frontier. " The project is sponsored by the Mountain Plains Libraw Association and takes in Colorado, ~ a n s a s Utah, , Nevadu, Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

continued

47

COUNTRY SCHOOL LEGACY continued from page 47

Above: Old country school, Cando, North Dakota Below: Barnes County School, North Dakota Photographs courtesy of State Historical Society ofNorth Dakota

Above: Golconda School, Golconda, Nevada

Below: Ruby Valley School, Ruby Valley, Nevada

Photographs by Andrew Gul2iford

C O U N T R Y S C H O O L LEGACY continued from page 49

Above: Parapon - School, Gunnison.

Colorado Below: Country school west of Wheatland, Wyoming

Above: Roller School, Ardmore, South Dakota Below: Old Country School In Thistle, Utah

Wasatch Academy, founded April 19, 1875, in M t . Pkasant, Utah.

EARLY UTAH SCHOOLS

by Scott B. Birkinshaw

Th

e first school in Utah was opened m October 1847 in an old military tent shaped like an ordinary Indian wigwam. Rough logs were used for seats, and the teacher's desk was an old camp-stool which had been brought across the plains by ox-teams.

Schools were often held in tents and covered wagons during the early colonization period of Utah communities. The first building erected by the Mormon colonists in Utah Territory was traditionally the meeting house which served as both church and school, as well as the center for other community events. There was no distinction made between the affairs of Church and state among the Mormon colonists; thus the bishop of

52

the local branch or ward and his counselors served as the Board of Education.

There are only a few of these meeting houses still in existence. The one at Kingston, Utah, has recently been restored by the townspeople for use as a social hall, though it has not been used as a church or school for many years.

The ward schools were gradually replaced with "district schools'' beginning in the 1870s. The district school buildings were separate from the meeting houses and were supported by territorial appropriations rather than tithing funds. They were, however, still Mormon denominational schools.

Non-Mormon denominational schools also flourished in Utah as a result of the efforts of Christian missionaries to convert Mormon children to more traditional beliefs.

The Wasatch Academv at Mt. Pleasant, Utah, still exists today as a Presbyterian school. Many schools sponsored by Episcopalians,

Methodists, Catholics, and other religious groups were active during the territorial period. Most of them gradually lost support from outside of Utah after the Mormons gave up the practice of polygamy and Utah became a state.

The Mormons began losing control of their district schools in the 1880s.

The Church was disincorporated and its leaders were forced to flee from arrest by U.S. Marshalls. However, because the leaders did not wish to have non-sectarian schools if they could avoid them, a number of "academies" were founded in the 1880s and '90s controlled directly by the Church Board of Education. Some of the academy buildings are still standing. The one at St. George is an outstanding example. Other academies were in Ogden, Provo, and Ephraim, and several of these have evolved into colleges and universities today.

Scott B. Birkinshaw is Associate Professor of Libraries at Weber State College.

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Sacred Heart Academy, Ogden, Utah.

Sugarhouse Ward School, a very plain adobe structure located at 1950 South 1200 East.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SCOTS STONEMASONS IN BEAVER, UTAH

by Linda L. Bonar

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54

homas Frazer sat under a leafy green cottonwood tree rhythmically chipping a large block of basalt with his stone hammer and chisel. Stonecutting was a profession he'd been practicing for year: and at this date in 1875, he had no need to think about what his strong, calloused hands were doing. Instead, his mind was occupied with ideas f ~the r new rock house which he was designing and building for one of his neighbors in Beaver, Utah. Frazer thought about the floor plan, about where the windows and doors would be placed, how many stories the house would have, where the chimneys would be, how the front porch would look, and scores of other details. Unlike today's contemporary designers who seek the unusual and the unique, Frazer as a folk architect worked within the parameters of tradition. Folk designers were a conservative group who generally chose to replicate the tried-and-true designs rather than be innovative simply for novelty's sake.

Consequently, Frazer thought about previous houses that he had seen or built, which were very influential on his design for the new house. Some of the house designs from his hometown in Scotland were astoundingly similar, as illustrated in photographs I through IV. For those who study Utah's vernacular architecture, exploring the origins of the various ideas for the designs themselves is both intriguing and complex. Utah was settled by very diverse population groups including many Europeans, and it appears that some of these ~ e o p l brought e their established building practices with them when they immigrated. As a result, architectural traditions from several parts of the United States are found side by side with European building traditions, and many such

buildings are tempered to one degree or another by influences from the "high styles" of architecture. Truly, a grand melange.

When a town or region is studied intensively, the influences on the vernacular architecture become identifiable and their origins may then be traced. Such is the case with Beaver, a town which displays many diverse influences in its folk architecture. But interestingly, one of the most dominant influences was provided by a number of Scots craftsmen who were active in the early building industry.

Indeed, it is safe to say that were it not for these Scotsmen, Beaver's considerable legacy of stone architecture would never have been built. The United States has a long tradition in the use of timber, but stone was never a popular building material.

In Utah, it appears that where stone was used extensively, it was generally due to the influence of European craftsmen.

Thomas Frazer is one such craftsman who settled in Beaver after having learned his stonemasonry skills in his native Scotland. He was born in 1821 in the small mill town of Lomty, about 25 miles northwest of Dundee.

After an unsuccessful stint in a weaving factory-an occupation which he detested-Frazer turned to stonemasonry for a career. Frazer loved the outdoor life of a mason. and in his journals he recorded his happiness at working with a gang of masons on various construction projects.

Frazer's fortieth birthdav in 1861 was a year of monumental change for him. In that year he married Annie Ironside and they both set sail across the North Atlantic for the United States, where they planned to settle in Utah Territory as converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). Once arrived in Salt Lake City, Frazer found employment working on the new granite temple there before being sent

by LDS Church officials to help settle the town of Lehi. Though his extant journals say little about the seven years spent in Lehi, it is obvious that Frazer was disappointed that he could not utilize his stonemasonry skills, for Lehi was primarily an adobe town. When he was asked to move to the new town of Beaver in 1868 to help initiate and direct an ambitious building program there, Frazer readily accepted, even though it meant uprooting his family

Annie Frazer, ca. 1881. (Pencil portrait) and moving some 150 miles farther southwest.

When the Frazer family arrived, Beaver Citv was twelve vears old and the townspeople were just beginning to make the transition from "temporary" dwellings-like log cabins and dugouts-to "permanent" homes in adobe and brick. And with Frazer's skill in stone, black basalt homes soon sprang up all over the landscape. He also built industrial. commercial. military, educational, and religious structures, but because most of them have been razed in the 20th century, it is necessary to turn to his extant residential architecture to study Frazer's work. This author has identified 34 buildings in Beaver that may safely be attributed to Frazer, and from them one can recognize his style of architecture.

Frazer's style of building changed dramatically during his thirty-year career in Beaver. In Scotland, he had been part of a group of masons that was res~onsiblefor construction of buildings, but the designs were left to professional architects. In Utah, however, the LDS Church so needed skilled craftsmen during its pioneer Western period that missionaries to

Britain were actually directed to convert such workers. Thus, in Beaver Frazer was called upon to do both the construction and the designing, a common situation throughout much of Utah Territory. As a result, it is actually possible to detect an improvement in Frazer's design capabilities as he acquired more on-the-job experience.

Because Frazer had learned stonemasonry in Scotland, it was perfectly natural that there should be some Scots influences on his Utah architecture. One of the most prominent Scots characteristics to occur in his Beaver buildings was the use of "Aberdeen bond." With this style of masonry, Frazer laid up courses of ashlar where a large block would be placed next to two or three small stones stacked one on top of the other, shown in photographs V and VI. This Aberdeen bond gave the masonry a more elaborate, ornate appearance than regularly sized blocks in even courses. It also made use of the smaller pieces of stone, but it was more time-consuming-and therefore more costly-to build, and by about 1880 Frazer had discontinued its use.

Another masonry technique that

Frazer learned in Scotland and used in Utah was that of beaded mortar joints.

As the roughly squared stone blocks were laid up in courses, the mortar joints were finished by a tool that sauared them and allowed them to be slightly raised, as photographs V and VI illustrate. This gave the stonework a precise, linear appearance, which was an important aesthetic in a new ~ i o n e ecommunitv. r This was a ;echnique that ~ r a J e applied r only on the facades that faced the street, which is yet another trait that was commonly used in Great Britain. As R. W. Brunskill points out in his book Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture, this allowed " . . . the designers of vernacular buildings . . . to present a show to the world . . . ," which was patterned after high style buildings in which all facades were of ashlar.

Still another masonry technique that Frazer learned in Scotland and utilized in Beaver was that of veneering the front facade with ashlar. The cut stone seen on the formal facades of a house was only skin deep, the rest of the wall consisting of infilled rubble stone as in photograph VII. In Frazer's work, all exterior walls were a uniform 18 inches thick, a depth that was easily achieved with this infilling technique.

Besides similarities in masonry methods, there were also similarities in architectural elements. For example, the center gable, dormer windows, and bay windows were used in various areas of Scotland and it was from such examples that Frazer probably thought to incorporate them into his own architecture, as shown in photographs VIII and IX. While he certainly must have seen these elements later used in the American Gothic Revival style, the original inspiration would have come from his native country.

David Muir was another Scots immigrant who made an impact on the Beaver landscape. Thomas Frazer frequently recorded his name in his workbooks as his right-hand man during the decade of the 1880s. Besides often working as Frazer's assistant, he designed and built his own house, seen in photograph X. This home is wonderfullyunique in Beaver, and it's a pity that it is the only one Muir built by himself. He had learned how to cut stone in Scotland, and in this Beaver home, the stone on the front facade was treated with impeccable care. The black basalt was precisley squared and laid up in even courses and finished with raised mortar joints. These mortar continued on page 58

I.

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kg-$+-$ I. Tattersall House, Beaver, Utah. Built

by Thomas Frazer, ca. 1877.

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11. House in Blairgowrie, Scotland, one mile from Thomas Frazer's hometown.

Frazer worked as a stonemason here, until the age of40 when he immigrated to Utah.

111. David Powell House, Beauer, Utah.

Built by Thomas Frazer, ca. 1875.

IV. House at Lornty Mill, Scotland, town of Thomas Frazer's birth.

V. "Aberdeen bond, " Beaver, Utah. From the Thomas Frazer House. This distinctive style of masonry was learned by Frazer in Scotland and applied in Utah after he immigrated. Note beaded mortar joints.

VI. "Aberdeen bond, " Blairgoevrie, Scotland. Note beaded mortar joints.

VIII. Dormer window in the Charles White House, Beaver, Utah. Built b> Thornas Fraze:r, ca. 1881.

IX. Dormer window, Blairgowrie, Scotland.

SCOTS STONEMASONS I N BEAVER, UTAH continuedfiom page 55 joints are different from Frazer's style because they are broader and higher in relief, which makes them very distinctive.

The Muir home originally had a hall and parlor plan, with end-wall chimneys, a steeply pitched roof, and four windows and a door symmetrically located across the front facade. One unusual element is the "tower" above the door, which is capped by brown granite coping and terminates with two granite scrolls which hold a granite sphere. This tower motif is a lovely example of folk art and is unique in Beaver.

Another example of Muir's designing and stonecarving talents is the headstone that he carved for his

33-year-old wife in the local Mountain View Cemetery. Both the careful craftsmanship and the architectonic theme in the monument deserve the observer's attention, as photograph XI illustrates.

William Burt was one of Beaver's original founding fathers, though he too was born and raised in Scotland. In the construction industry, he is primarily remembered as aplasterer, but he sometimes built houses for family and very close friends.

His own home is built of black basalt and displays a Scottish masonry technique, shown in photograph XII. Burt used large blocks of basalt and after roughly squaring them, laid them up in approximate courses with wide

mortar ioints (about 4 inches in thickness). 1n;o these still-wet mortar joints, he pressed basalt pebbles, a technique that is seen today in parts of southeastern Scotland. O n the interior of the house, Burt used plaster molding for a decorative effect on the ceiling, in exactlv the same manner that wood molding is more frequently seen in Beaver.

Like Burt. Robert Thimblebee is also remembered as a plasterer, but his name is frequently recorded in Frazer's workbooks as a mason and he did some of the stonework on Fort Cameron (1873)as well. He learned his construction skills in Scotland, though there are no known exam~lesof his work that would lend a picture of his continued on page 60

X. D a d Muir House, built by Muir himself, in Beaver, Utah.

XI. William Burt House, Beaver, Utah.Yet another Scots masonry technique was used by Burt in his home.

SCOTS STONEMASONS IN BEAVER, U T A H continuedfrom page 58 individual stvle.

The ~ o v i e Brothers r are two more Scottish natives who worked in Beaver's construction industrv. Unlike the others alreadv mentioned, however, they did not learn their skills in Scotland; they acquired them after they had immigrated to the United States.

Alexander "Scotty" Boyter first came to Beaver in 1873 with the U. S. Armv and the establishment of Fort Cameron just east of town. His enlistment papers show that he originally signed on as a wheelright, but with the construction of the fort, he became a very proficient mason.

When his enlistment had expired, he returned home to Scotland to bring his widowed mother and his younger brother James to Beaver, where the three lived for the rest of their lives.

James became a self-taught artist who carved remarkablv beautiful monuments for his livelihood, to be seen in the city cemetery. He was also a art-time contractor who worked with his brother Scotty on some of the buildings in Beaver.

60

When the question is asked of whether or not there are any Scots characteristics to be found in the Boyter Brothers' work, the answer is difficult. While there don't appear to be any direct Scots influences on their masonry techniques, there is probable influence on their designs. But here, tracing the influences on their work becomes very murky because they were undoubtedly also influenced by what they saw in the United States and Utah Territory, as well as by Thomas Frazer's work. A t any rate, the Boyter Brothers were the second most prolific building contractors in Beaver and their houses frequently have similar external appearances to those that they would have in and around their native Dundee.

Thus, in Beaver we still find today a very large contribution to the pioneer building industry from the immigrant Scottish community. Architectural historians working in Utah have found a veritable cauldron of influences on early Mormon architecture. There were of course various regional American influences, as well as "high

stvle" influences, such as the Gothic ~ b v i v a and l the classical revival styles.

In Utah's Sanpete Valley, Tom Carter is in the process of documenting the Scandinavian influences on architecture there. And in Beaver the old Scots builders constructed everything from buildings with a few Scottish influences to what in effect may be considered replicas of Scottish upper class architecture, modified to meet vernacular needs in Utah. Were it not for these prolific Scots builders, Beaver would most likely be entirely without its considerable legacy of pioneer stone architecture.

Linda Bonar received her master's degree in Art History from the University of Utah, where she is currently an associate ~ofessorteaching Utah's Architectural Preservation. She has studied extensively in this field, including work in Washington, D. C., and Southern Utah.

Linda traveled to Scotland with the specific intent ofresearching this article on Scots influence in Beaver, Utah.

All photos by Linda L. Bonar

ZION'S COOPERATIVE MERCANTILE INSTITUTION

T

he Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution was formed in 1868.

Before 1880, 150 branch stores reached into 24 counties and 126 towns and cities.

O n April 10, 1875, a committee was chosen to select a site for a new building in Salt Lake City, and the present site on East South Temple (now called Main Street) was selected.

The land was purchased from Brigham Young for $30,000. Architects for the structure were William H. Folsom and Obed Taylor, and the cost of construction was $136,544. The ZCMI building, which is reputed to be the first department store in America, was completed in March 1876 and opened for business on April 1 of the same year.

The structure is architecturally significant because of its unusual well-maintained historic storefront of cast iron.

The present ZCMI facade is a window wall of three matching sections built at different times. Rows of Corinthian columns divide the windows. These columns are of cast iron in the center (1876) and south (1880) portions but are of heavy stamped sheet metal in the 1901 north portion. There is a medallion cornice at each level and also in the rake of the pediment. The top cornice has brackets aligned with the columns below and a row of dentils under the medallions, which are larger than those of the cornices below. Under the pediment is a frieze which extends across the center portion of the storefront. It contains large letters (ZCMI) balanced on each side with circular frames containing the date of founding, 1868, on the left and the date of pediment construction, 1901, on the right. The rest of the frieze contains a connecting vine and leaf pattern. Above the top cornice, antefixes project in alignment with the columns below. They are typical of much of the ornament which is of light sheet metal formed over wood. The columns are painted black; other ornament and moldings are white.

The building stands today as the backbone of the ZCMI Center, one of the busiest shopping malls in Salt Lake City.

Information obtained from the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form o n file at the Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City.

The old Eagle Emporium, first site of Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution in Salt Lake City. 2CMI opened for business in this store March I , 1869. Note the interesting customers who used to come to town in those days. The picture is believed to have been taken in the lute 1860s or early 1870s.

METALS MANUFACTURING COMPANY, 330 West 100 South, Salt Lake City, (322-1171), is a local company responsible for the fabrication of

all the sheet metal parts and erection in the restoration of the ZCMI facade.

LOOTING OUR PAST Protection of South Dakota's Archaeological Heritage

by Frank H. Adams

I

nside the homes of many South Dakotans, artifacts which date from the region's early history lay on mantlepieces, knick-knack shelves, and coffee tables. These are the fruits of a popular hobby in the state: digging and collecting archaeological curiosities.

Sometimes mounted in display cases, the artifacts range from arrowheads to Indian pottery fragments, to rare whole pots, glasses and bottles, and even human bones.

To the owners, they havegot only personal value but, in the case of some objects, considerable monetary value.

"The trouble is, that if these objects came from federal or Indian land. the owners are breaking a law which carries penalties of up to a year's imprisonment and a $10,000 fine if they are arrested and convicted," says Steve Ruple, archaeologist for the Historical Preservation Center, Vermillion, South Dakota. Archaeologists refer to these people as pot hunters, looters, and sometimes as collectors.

The law is the Federal Antiquities Act of 1979, and is intended to protect "objects of antiquity" which are located on "public lands and Indian lands,'' according to the text of the law.

The objects the law refers to must be at least 100 years old, and are defined as "any material remains of past human life or activities which are of archaeological interest."

The philosophy of the law runs something like this: artifacts on federal land belong to the public, and if they are dug up they should be analyzed and placed in museums for public viewing.

When pot hunters dig up artifacts for their own collections or for trade or sale, it interferes with this process.

Artifacts need to be protected, archaeologists point out, because their commercial value and their value as collectables makes them so attractive that people are digging archaeological

62

Looter's pit in bluffat Crow Creek

sites in large numbers. When people do this it has tremendous impact.

State Archaeologist Bob Alex of Sturgis, South Dakota, says, "Pot hunters are destroying history. When they dig a site they're destroying the information in it. It's a little akin to book burning; destroying the information before anyone gets a chance to look at it."

Pot hunting is bad as opposed to an archaeological dig, Steve Ruple says, because "any disturbance to a site destroys the context of inter-related facts, such as soil stains, plant pollen, and variations which wouldn't have been there if people hadn't lived there.

In the ground, this relationship only has meaning if the sites are dug and interpreted by a skillful archaeologist."

By analyzing these relationships, archaeologists can tell how old artifacts are, mobable uses, and a host of facts abdit the culture.'

Ruple regards artifacts as resources, saying, "The entire public doesn't have a right to destroy non-renewable resources. They have a right to enjoy them. People have an obligation to do their Dart to wotect them." i ~ i e r r iesident e described how widespread pot hunting is in the state's capital: "It's a popular Sunday afternoon sport for many people to go out to the river and collect artifacts in summertime. When the water gets low enough in the Oahe reservoir people go to old Fort Sulley and submerged Indian villages to look for artifacts."

Since the land around and under the reservoir is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, people who participate in this "Sunday afternoon

sport" are actually in violation of the Antiquities Act. While many people who do this are ignorant of the law, and don't collect on a wide scale, others know about the law and have resorted to extreme measures to pillage historical sites.

There have been reports by Tim Nowak, archaeologist for the Corps of Engineers, that one pot hunter has used dynamite in his search for earthen pots, arrowheads, and bones.

Once, Nowak says, "There was a guy from California over by Old Fort Sullev when the water was down. He was using a backhoe to dig while looking for artifacts."

Further north by Mobridge, an area rich in archaeological sites, pot hunters have been busy. At a prehistoric Indian village site, one archaeologist says, "Another archaeologist and I were there, and there were holes dug by looters which were so deep that if you were down in them, you couldn't get out without a ladder. There were so many holes it looked like a battlefield."

While archaeologists would rather have the Antiquities Act serve as a deterrent to looters, seeking arrests and convictions of destructive looters is sounding more practical to the Council of South Dakota Archaeologists. Law enforcement officers and archaeologists hope convictions will deter looting where mere posting of the law has failed.

Although South Dakota Archaeologists are committed to reducing theft of antiquities, they realize this is easier said than done.

They face a problem of protecting archaeological resources in South

of Engineers at Chamberlain, says Blair claims to have been digging at the Crow Creek Site.

Blair also claims he has never sold any pottery or tried to, which is also against the law. But Doris Schneider, former owner of the Art Potpourri in Mitchell, has a different story. "He had Indian Dotterv from the Southwest. from ~ k ~we x i c oand , some from Chamberlain. He wanted to sell some of it here on consignment. I asked him to check with an archaeologist to set a value. But he was reluctant to do so; he said people in the scientific field weren't in favor of his work."

Archaeologists feel that aside from monus says he just gave up and made small talk.

"We need to inform law enforcement officers that there's a serious looting problem and we want them to enforce the laws and protect these sites. If the laws have reasonable penalties, I hope they're enforced," says Darrell Fulmer, President of the Council of South Dakota Archaeologists.

In the South Dakota Archaeological Society, people who enjoy the thrill of discovery when they unearth artifacts can pursue their hobby and contribute to the information we have about past settlements, according t o Steve Ruple.

Former Brookings Judge Lyle Cheever says, "I'm an amateur archaeologist. I will not be involved in a dig unless it's supervised by a professional. I'm not a pot hunter, and have no personal collection. I want to ensure, discover, preserve, and record the information for the ~ublic.

"If people have had training and record what they find, and make their information available to the public, the" aren't beine destructive: Then the; contribute ;o the general fund of knowledge about South Dakota."

Cheever said he would like to convince pot hunters that by digging they're destroying information and gaining little in the process. "In our area there aren't that manv whole ~ o t s and they don't have that Auch economic value," he says.

As part of a program to interest people in amateur archaeology, Lynn Alex of Sturgis trains people to dig correctly to recover the artifacts and get the information from a site. And members of the South Dakota Archaeology Society tour sites and participate in digs. '

Looter's hole at Lake Mitchell site Dakota's 77,000 square miles with a small force.

"If you're talking about any real enforcement of the Antiquities Act, you've got to have a case like Crow Creek," says an FBI agent in Pierre.

The Crow Creek case he refers to involved the theft and vandalism of some 44 skeletons in one of North America's most important archaeological sites.

The site is the remains of a fortified Indian Village south of Fort Thompson on the Missouri River. Over Memorial Day weekend in 1978, a group of South Dakota archaeologists stumbled across a huge mass of human bones protruding from the eroding river bank.

Excavation and analysis of the bones revealed the remains of nearly 500 people who had been massacred in 1325 and dumped into the defense ditch surrounding their village.

But before the archaeologists returned to the site to excavate it, someone climbed the bluff and chopped about 18 cubic feet of human remains from the bank. This upset the archaeologists who were there to learn about a past culture, and it disgusted and angered Sioux Indians living in the Crow Creek Indian Resewation.

"I don't understand the idea of going out and looking for bones and pots, making it a regular practice.

What would people think if we went into Chamberlain digging up graves, looking for gold teeth and jewelry?"

Vice-Chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Leroy Thompson says.

Archaeologists reported the theft to the Tribal Police in Fort Thompson, and to the FBI in Pierre. Both law

enforcement agencies investigated the theft, but evidence was sparse and inconclusive. "It's pretty tough to prove if material comes from federal or Indian land. If trace elements are on the pots or bones, maybe chemical or other laboratory forensic tests could be used to prove where they came from," says the FBI agent.

The agent says he's heard of people going to old Fort Sulley in the Oahe Reservoir to hunt for pots and bottles.

With regard to protecting antiquities along the Missouri River, he says, "I wouldn't mind setting up a river patrol myself."

Even if an archaeologist sees someone looting material from federal lands there can be difficulties. "One time I was inspecting some sites along the Missouri River," says Adrian Hannus, Archaeologist for South Dakota State University, "when I saw a man and a boy digging up the bank, screening the soil for pots and arrowheads. I told them that this was against the law and we argued for a while."

When Hannus walked in to the local sheriffs house to report this, he saw the mantlepiece and walls of the room were sprinkled with Indian pottery. Hanuth Dakota in Vermillion suspect Blair is the person who vandalized the human remains at the Crow Creek Massacre Site. But Blair says he has never been there.

However, both the Tribal Police at Fort Thompson and the Army Corps of Engineers report that Blair was on the site with his pickup, which is registered in his wife's name. And Dale Lundquist, Park Manager for the Corps

A

HISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING THE PAST THROUGH PICK AND SHOVEL

by Wilson Martin & Bruce Hawkins

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he Deveraux House had its beginnings when William C. Staines, a horticulturalist, built a Gothic-style cottage and garden on two city lots from 1855 to 1857. This cottage was the start ofwhat is now the Deveraux House. The cottage was sold in 1867 to an English convert to the Mormon religion by the name of William Jennings, and after Jennings purchased the Staines property and cottage, he began acquiring other properties on the south half of the block for more garden space. In 1868 an addition designed by William Paul was added to the cottage. The house now came to resemble the dwelling we see today. Jennings also employed a landscape gardener in the 1870s by the name of Stephen Stanford, who continued the work started by Staines, providing a formal carriage drive opposite the main entry to the dwelling. Between 1874 and 1876 a second addition was added to the east side of the 1868 addition, replacing the original Staines cottage. However, in 1886 Jennings died, and within a decade after his death the spacious ground surrounding the estate fell prey to increased industrialization.

The development of this house parallels the periods of change in Utah's history. Therefore, it was an important target of the historic and archaeological investigation which began in the summer of 1980under the direction of the State Archaeologist, Dr. David Madsen; with the work being supervised by Bruce Hawkins, a historic archaeologist; and crew members Jim Kirkman, Mike Benson,

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and volunteer Gareth Lewis. Their work was to identify the additions and alterations to the Deveraux House, with the information to be used in the restoration of the mansion to reflect the 1880 to 1890 p'eriod.

In order to accomplish this, a strategy for identifying the locations c the original foundations had to be accomplished. This was completed through photographic and historic research using historic insurance maps and on-the-ground investigation to identify the most likely places to begin excavation.

There were three structures needing identification through these investigations: the dimensions of the laundrv/kitchen addition; the front porch and conservatory location; and ;he ballroom entrance.' The first area investigated was the laundry foundation. Part of this was alreadv visible on the surface, so excavation started with the known and worked to the unknown, ending up uncovering about two-thirds of the foundation, which was enough to give the dimensions of the laundry. As part of this excavation an interior wall foundation was also uncovered which was previously unknown. It was determined that construction of the laundry occurred between 1876 and 1877.

A kitchen addition was the next area of interest, presumably being located east of the 1868 building construction. The historic archaeologists worked in this area by digging three test pits in an area where the addition was shown in the 1889

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Photos I and 2 show excawatingfor the laundry and kitchen addition foundations. Photo 3 is west elevation which gives an indication of the ballroom entrance. Photo 4 is the Devereaux House south elvation.

Sanborn map. However, little evidence of a kitchen was identified, with only a thin surface of heavily disturbed lime being discovered about 12 to 18 inches from the surface. The work in this area, therefore, was inconclusive.

The excavation then moved to the east side of the house where surface examination revealed evidence of the conservatory foundation. Continued excavation revealed the remainder of the foundation in that area, as well as two porch-pier supports. Additional excavation along the south side of the house failed to reveal anv additional porch-pier supports, but remains of a gravel walkway were discovered.

O n the west side of the house, near the ballroom door, a concrete foundation was found which was the probable support for the porch in front of the ballroom entrance. Substantial amounts of household artifacts and what appears to be a midden or trashpile from the 1868-1878 ca. kitchen were identified. Several artifacts were found in the midden including a stem from a kaolin clay pipe, a leather shoe heel, English porcelain teacups, Chinese porcelain bowls, and utilitarian cups, plates, and tumblers. Work is currently underway in attempting to date and catalog these items so they can be compared to similar types of artifacts found at other digs. This means of cataloging

information forms a general knowledge basis for historic archaeology throughout the country. A number of sourcebooks are available, in the form of trade catalogs and other professional material, to help identify the origins of these artifacts.

The many benefits from the historic archaeological project are important. First of all, the location and configuration of the laundry, conservatory, porches, and other structures have been substantially identified to establish correct historic preservation guides. Also, the artifacts have been used to determine the types of goods used by the occupants.

This study lays the groundwork for accurate restoration of the building and is a must if we are to gain a clear insight into the history of the Deveraux House and its occupants.

We encourage all projects which involve major restoration to undertake historic archaeological investigation in order to guarantee that the best possible records are available, thus ensuring proper restoration of these important resources.

Wilson Martin is Preservation Development Coordinator and Bruce Hawkins is Historical Archaeologist at the Utah State Historical Society.

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REBIRTH OF A HOTEL

by Frank H. Adams

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n Hot Springs, located in South Dakota's southern Black Hills, the EGans Hotel was gutted by a fire on January 10, 1979, just weeks before extensive rehabilitation of the historic building would have been completed.

All the hard work and money invested in the building went up in smoke.

The restoration of the Evans Hotel was particularly important to Hot Springs, since it was central to their Main Street Project, one of three pilot examples across the country conducted by the National Trust for Historical Preservation to determine the economic impact of historic preservation in small towns.

Success with the Evans was important to the whole project, since Hot Springs residents hoped to use the Evans as a spinoff to help revitalize other areas of town.

And now, two years after fire swept the building, it's occupied once again.

Favorable weather conditions and a strong community commitment helped the town and the developer reach their goal.

Immediately after the fire struck, however, a number of Hot Springs residents doubted thev would ever see this day. Herb ~ a w s o kformer , architect for the Main Street Project in Hot Springs, comments, "When the building was still on fire, I thought it was all over.

"But when they started getting people in here to determine the amount of damage, my hopes picked up. I tried to keep a positive attitude," Dawson added.

Scott Gerloff, manager for Hot Springs' Main Street Project, described the town's reactions: "When the fire hit, it threw everybody into a tither. A lot of people had worked on it a long time. Many people were depressed.

Grown men were crying. " Gerloff confided; "I was being optimistic, telling reporters that we'd

continue on the project, not knowing how we'd do it."

However, on the second day after the fire more people began to get ready for the task ahead of them. In fact, Gerloff says, Dean Kurtz, the developer working on the Evans Hotel, was adamant about restoring it.

Before work could begin again an independent engineer looked over the building to assess the damage to it. A structural analvsis revealed that the fifth floor was unsound.

So, photographers from the National Trust photographed the damaged stonework to make a permanent record, which would be used in the eventual restoration of the floor. Then each stone was numbered before being removed from the hotel, stone by stone. In total, the cost to restore the fifth floor would amount to $85.000. . , During the reconstruction the walls had to stand on their own with little or no support from the inside. To brace the walls, telephone poles were driven into the ground next to them while workers restored the building.

"Had there been no fire." Dean Kurtz says, "the total cost to restore the building would have been $3,250,000.

There was $1.4 million worth of damage caused by the fire. " The extra expense further complicated the task which lay before Kurtz Construction Company and the community. To help with the rebuilding process community leaders applied for a $40,000 grant from the Historical Preservation Center, Vermillion.

But in order to qualify for this federally supplied money the city had to raise $30,000 locally to meet an October 1, 1979, deadline. Through the Historical Preservation Center, Hot Springs set up a tax deductible status for donations to the fund.

Dean Kurtz started the fund with a

$5,000 donation. To raise more money, Scott Gerloff says, "We had everything from house tours, auctions, donations, bake sales, and even frog jumping contests."

By the time the deadline rolled around, the citizens group, Save Our Sandstone, had gone over their goal, raising $32,000.

Another factor which helped mitigate the expenses of the rehabilitation is the Tax Reform Act of 1976. This allows the accelerated depreciation or the amortization of the funds spent rehabilitating income-producing historic buildings.

When Kurtz was asked how he felt ' about the incentives offered by the Tax Reform Act, he replied, "I would recommend this type of project to others." Now that the Evans is complete, it is used as low-income housing for the elderly.

Due to the success and quality of the project, the Evans Hotel has been nominated for the Crowninshield Award, the highest award given in the nation for historic preservation activities.

Paul Putz, of the Historical Preservation Center, summed up the uniqueness of Hot Springs: "The Hot Springs project is considered by preservationists as one of the most significant preservation stories in America today. It shows how a developer, a community, and preservationists can work together to accomplish the impossible. " Frank H . Adams is afreelance writer who formerly wrote for the Historical Preservation Center in Vermillion, South Dakota.

Lead Daily Cdl, 0 1980

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the University of Utah campus is the pnmary cultural resource for the visual arts in the lnterrnountain Region. Its collection represents many styles and cultures over 5000 years. The Museum presents a continuous series of temporary exhibitions which bring to this region treasures from other museums and private collections.

Many educational outreach programs are offered, such as tiaweling exhibitions, classroom experiences, guided tours, lectures and gallery talks, film series, and activities for older adults. Ample opportunities are available for volunteer invobement which is essential to the success of the Museum.

The Museum is a treasure house belonging to all Utahns. Its programs benefit the entire public and are free and avaihble almost every day of the year.

DENVER AND RIO GRANDE DEPOT

by Larry Jones ne of Salt Lake City's landmarks since 1910, the newly renovated Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Depot, is now the new home of the Utah State Historical Society. In 1977, under the leadership of Governor Scott M. Matheson, Utah State government decided to embark on a new approach to housing the offices of state government. The idea was as simple as it was cost effective: Purchase. if possible, existing structures and rehabilitate them for government offices, rather than continue to lease or build new buildings. It was found that retro-fitting (a preservationist term for refitting an old building to serve new uses) existing buildings to achieve the same level of quality office space as new buildings could be acconiplished at a savings of from 30 to 50 percent over similar new construction. It was further determined that most existing buildings, when brought up to current building code standards, become more energy efficient than new buildings, due to the quality of early building techniques and materials. Also, an obvious fact that until recentlv has been overlooked is that the rehabilitation of existing structures is more energy efficient than new construction, simply because less building materials are required to repair an old building than to build a new one. This translates into big savings in both energy and construction time.

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The State Historical Society Being in the Right Place at the Right Time The Utah State Historical Societv, .. having vacated the famous Thomas Kearns Mansion, now the official Governor's residence. needed a new home. As good fortune would have it, the Denver and Rio Grande and Western Pacific Railroads decided that the time was right to do something with their large Salt Lake City depot besides pay taxes on it. The depot, described as a mixture of renaissance revival and beaux arts classicism, was considered by the railroad to be a relic of the past; a tangible monument to the competition between transcontinental railroad barons struggling for control of the nation's transportation at the turn of the century.

Thus, when the railroads offered the building to the Utah State Historical Society for the timely fee of one dollar, wheels began to turn. The 42nd legislature passed legislation approving the acquisition of the depot, provided the state building board could prove that the benefits outweighed the rehabilitation and expected maintenance cost. By July 1978 the Utah State Historical Society had a new home.

Stephen Baird, A.I. A., well-known Utah restoration architect, was hired to produce working drawings aimed at transforming the derelict structure into modern office, museum, restaurant, and train station facilities. Since the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, every effort was made to retain as manv of the original features as Gossibl;, right down to the bathroom sinks. Following the Secretary of Interior's standards for the rehabilitation of historic buildings, many useful interior and exterior features were repaired rather than discarded or replaced, amounting to a significant overall savings. Like most train stations, the D & RG was ideally suited to take on new uses. The large lobby, with its 58-foot ceilings and omate decoration, is receiving the finishing touches to become a flexible museum and meeting space. Shows and exhibits are already scheduled well into the years ahead.

Neatly tucked beneath the second floor balcony on the east, looking out into the museum space, is the Director's Office, as well as the Historical Society's General Administrative and Educational Programs offices. Similar spaces on the west side of the museum house the Historical Society's gift store and bookshop.

Former lounge areas at the north end of the main lobby have been converted into multi-purpose meeting rooms. The far north end of the first level houses restaurant facilities which are expected to be leased shortly by a restauranteur interested in capitalizing on a turn-of-the-century railroad theme.

Above the restaurant and meeting

rooms in the north wing is the vast collection of the Historical Society's research library and nationally known photo archives collections. The south wing of the depot, which was formerly occupied on the first level by the railroad ticket office and baggage handling, now houses Museum and Publications offices. Passengers still arrive and depart from the D & RG depot on the Rio Grande Zephyr. To accommodate the increasing number of passengers, a modem functional ticket office and waiting room has been built into the south wing in a former REA freight storage area. At the far north end of the first level, a highly efficient loading dock and freight elevator have been constructed in conjunction with museum, archaeological, and paleontological workshops.

The second level of this wing, originally containing railroad offices, now houses the Preservation and Antiquities Sections of the Historical Society. The central hallway, complete with period style lighting and terrazzo flooring, bisects the office spaces on the east and west. The east bay houses the Preservation Development ofices and a newly formed Technical Preservation Resource Center. The Resource Center, first of its kind in the state, maintains a library of technical preservationhow-to-do-it publications, a collection of

preservation plans and specification, audio-visual equipment, and a trained staff all available to assist the general public with answers to building rehab and restoration problems.

The west bay houses the Preservation Research Section, composed of experts in Utah's history and architecture. Here buildings and sites are researched, nominated, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places. At the far end of the building's south wing are the Antiquities offices, an interesting place where the state archaeologist, state paleontologist, and their staffs, plus an unusual array of bones, pots, and other artifacts, reside.

No building which has been designated to serve and benefit the public can be considered complete until the needs of the handicapped have been met. In the very early schematic design stages, handicapped access to all areas of the structure were carefully provided for. Elevators located strategically in either wing of the building allow ease of access to the second level as well as to the basement.

All doorways, drinking fountains, and rest room facilities have provisions for wheelchair access.

The Salt Luke Tribune of August 14, 1910, described the new depot as "absolutely fireproof' with its marble wainscoting and tile floors throughout.

No chances were taken, however;

smoke detectors and fire sprinkling systems have been installed throughout the structure and are found to be scarcely noticeable.

Seismic stabilization of existing structures is an increasing area of concern in Utah. Prior to any re-design of existing spaces or any cosmetic improvements, the depot was carefully examined by structural engineers to determine the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the existing building. As a result of their calculations, new concrete shear walls were designed into the building at key areas.

A primary concern when retro-fitting historic buildings for new uses is designing modem requirements such as shear walls, fire escapes, and forced air systems into the existing building in such a way as to create the least amount of visual intrusion.

Visitors to the new D & RG probably will find it difficult to pick out the new elements from the old.

Existing boiler and steam lines in the building proved too unreliable and costly to operate, necessitating a replacement of the entire system. The H.V. A.C. (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) system with all its intricate wiring, duct work, and plumbing, resulted in the single greatest expense encountered in the rehabilitation of the building. The basement of the depot at the onset of

this project was a hot, humid, and very wet no-man's land. Onlv one comer of the basement, that whidh housed the heating system, had a concrete floor.

The decision was made early in the project to dig out the waterlogged and unpaved portions of the basement and concrete the entire area. This resulted in much-needed storage space for the museum, library, archaeology, paleontology, publications, and preservation sections. All phases of construction begun under this initial bid have been completed. Final painting of the interior wall surfaces and staining of oak wood trim are almost comvlete. Under this basic construction the primary focus was to stabilize and refit the structure for occupancy. The only work carried out on the exterior of the building was restoration of the wall-mounted lighting fixtures, replacing broken windows, minor roof repairs, and cleaning of the exterior wall surfaces.

The exterior surfaces are composed of Colorado-Yule marble, terra cotta, and New Jersey rain-washed brick. These surfaces managed to become very dark and soiled over the years, necessitating a thorough cleaning using chemical surface cleaners. Additional exterior work will be carried out under a future phase which will include repairing the ornate pressed copper roof soffits and fascias, as well as repairing and repainting all exterior wood trim around the doors and windows.

With a vast majority of the renovation complete, the various sections of the Utah State Historical Society began moving into their new home on December 29, 1980. The project cost $2.5 million to complete, resulting in an overall cost per square foot of $29.45, well below the current $55.00 to $70.00 per square foot for equivalent new construction in the Salt Lake City area. Not a bad deal for 85,2 16 square feet of better-than-new ofice space.

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Larry Jones is Preservation Consultant at the Utah State Historical Society.

PRESERVATION ECONOMICS: EINER NIELSON FIELD HOUSE REHABILITATED

by Wilson Martin

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he Einer Nielson Field House on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City was formerly the home of the "Running Utes" basketball team. It holds memories for many people. It is from here that the Running Utes went on to win the NCAA in 1944 and the NIT in 1947; it is from here that Billy "The Hill" McGill played his great games. The Field House also had a highly acclaimed resilient basketball floor.

Thus, it was with some pangs of nostalgia that fans learned of the construction of a new facility for the Running Utes. Fans were excited about the new Special Events Center, but wondered about the fate of the old Field House. However, the wait turned into a pleasant surprise when Minson and Halander were chosen as the architects to rehabilitate the old Field House.

Under the direction of Bruce Jensen,

University of Utah architect, planning began for a multiple-use sports facility.

The Field House had several problems to overcome, including damage on the exterior corners where water had seeped in, destroyed brick, and caused other water damage to the building. Because of these problems, the architects had a iob on their hands. not only to stabilize the structure, but also to provide an acceptable multiple-use facility.

The use for the buildine was determined with the help i f the Student Association, the president of the student body, and the men's and women's deans. It was imvortant to these groups to maintain the nostalgic exterior of the building, including the front facade. A connection to the nearby Rice Stadium was needed, but without damage to the physical integrity of the historic building. The L 2

facility had to be designed to deal with at least 800 people a day, and the students agreed that everyone must make reservations, including the University president.

After all these planning elements were taken into consideration and the plans were developed, the construction began and was finally completed in September of 1978. The water problem was handled by an internal drainage system, which is not visible on the exterior of the building, therefore keeping the facade undisturbed. The stadium connection was designed by leaving the historic building free-standing with a bridge walkway into the stadium. The original window frames were retained and new tinted plexiglass replaced the windows, thus retaining the original glass light configuration. The plexiglass was used to prevent internal glare on the five

tennis courts. It was also the only material available to ensure adequate protection in opaqueness and translucent qualities for the interior spaces. The building did meet the design of dealing with 800 people a day; however, it now gets between 1,400 and 1,500people a day usage. As in the plans, even the University president has to make reservations.

The building's five tennis courts are located in the central area of the building, with a running track suspended above the tennis courts. The building also has squash courts, handball courts, weight room, exercise room, and locker rooms with a sauna and whirpool. The tennis court surface is polyurethane; because of this ' material, the floor has multiple uses. It has a resiliency to withstand possible automobile shows and other heavy uses. It is used each year for the homecoming festivities. The running track also has the same polyurethane material. The handball and racquetball courts were designed with a special plastic laminate formica material over a particle board. This prevents the oft-recurring situation in some handball courts where, being made of plaster, they have to be torn down every six to eight months and replaced in order to retain smooth surfaces. The floors in the courts interlock through a metal grid and are tied down every square foot on a bed of polyurethane foam which keeps the moisture from coming up through the floor. It also gives the floor complete and consistent resiliency throughout.

The ceiling material over the tennis courts, which was planned as a part of the superstructure, is an

insulator with an R-factor of 28, but is also resistant to damage from tennis balls that might be hit up on the ceiling occasionally. The light fixtures over the tennis court were another concern because they often are damaged by balls. Therefore, painted galvanized iron was used so as to resist the balls.

The transformers for the main lights are hidden in the panels behind the walls in order to maintain a low noise level that often can be heard in tennis facilities.

The graphics in the facilities provide a special character to the structure, the graphics being done by Ted Nagata of Salt Lake City.

Probably the most important thing about the structure is the cost. The building has an overall square footage of 72,380 with 44,880 square feet on the main level, 7,500 square feet on the lower level, 10,000 square feet on the second level, and 10,000 square feet on the third level. The total cost of the rehabilitation was $2.25 million. This means that the total cost was $3 1 per square foot. This is a very exciting factor in relation to the new state-constructed sports facilities which would, at the time of construction, cost $45 to $50 per square foot.

This adaptively-used sports facility provides an excellent look at what it can mean to reutilize a structure, taking into account the economics of re-use while still maintaining the original facade character and much of its nostalgia.

Wilson Martin, Preservation Development Coordinator, Utah State Histmica1 Society.

A PROCESS FOR DUPLICATING ORNAMENTAL CASTINGS FOR HISTORICAL BUILDINGS

by Charles E. Edwards, D.D.S. C. E. Edwards, D.D.S. ower 25th Street in Ogden, Utah, is a street with three blocks of commercial buildings lining both sides of the street. Most of the buildings predate turn of the century construction and the architecture also reflects that period. It is situated in the heart of Ogden and next to the railroad depot which was for many years the hub of railroading between San Francisco and Omaha. Nebraska. Lower 25th Street was a beehive of activitv for a long period of time and becam; known across the nation as "two-bit street" where anything could happen. . . and probably did.

In the mid 1970s the Utah State Historical ~dciety,in cooperation with the Ogden Neighborhood Development Agency and City Council, decided that the architecture of the street should be preserved and a moratorium was initiated to vrevent any further demolition of those historic buildings. The Preservation Office of the Utah State Historical Society assisted the Ogden Neighborhood Development Agency in applying for and securing a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to survev and prepare facade drawings showing how each of the early commercial structures on 25th Street could look if they were rehabilitated. These drawings were produced by two architectural firms at a very low cost per building; once completed all of the drawings were bound into books which have proven very helpful in allowing building owners to see how the proposed building improvements would affect their structures.

In 1977 Dr. Charles E. ~dwards,a dentist in Layton, Utah, became

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interested in the restoration possibilities of 25th Street and invested in five buildings which appeared to have the most votential for rehabilitation and which had the most interesting facades.

Armed with the facade drawings of the Porter Block, Dr. Edwards applied for and received matching grants-in-aid in the amount of $5,000 from the Heritage Conservation Service via the Utah State Historical Society for facade rehabilitation. Dr. Edwards estimates that the facade rehabilitation will cost slightly over $13,500 when completed.

The Research Dr. Edwards learned from Allen Roberts of Salt Lake Citv. , . who had been the architectural historian for the Utah State Historical Society, that the facade of the Porter Block was a product of the Mesker Brothers of St. Louis, Missouri, a company that produced many building fronts in the late 1800s. Mr. Roberts had located an old Mesker Bros. Catalog - which was helpful in determining what parts were missing from the Porter Block and the designinformation needed to restore it properly.

The original facade was primarily sheet metal with some cast iron ornaments at first floor level. It was not until the carpenters removed recent alterations of the facade that it was possible to determine exactly what the

original design had been. An early tax photograph was also located at the tax assessor's office which helped in that regard.

The Mesker Bros. Company of St. Louis was contacted by telephone to inquire if they had any of their original molds for the ornamental pieces needed for the Porter Block. It was surprising to learn that the company was still in existence, but a fire in the 1940s had destroyed all their molds for pressing such ornamental pieces.

Mr. Roberts had found, in his travels, several buildings with Mesker Bros. fronts. There were two Mesker Bros. Companies producing fronts in the late 1800s, but the designs each had were different so it was a matter of locating the correctly designed building to match the Porter Block.

Castings from Similar Designed Buildings Having been a dentist for 18 years, Dr. Edwards was well acquainted with impression materials and casting plasters. This was an aid to him as he traveled out of state in his effort to get castings from buildings similar to the Porter Block.

In taking a casting from a building the process would be greatly simplified if the ornament could be taken off, stripped of paint and then used for reproduction. This was not possible in any instance so a method had to be used in getting a casting reproduction with

the ornaments undisturbed. Several methods and materials were used, but the most successful method was as follows: A separating medium used which worked well was Vaseline. With a paint brush it was spread uniformly over the piece to be reproduced (and a bit beyond) to aid in cleanup. The most ideal casting (or duplicating) material was found to be a floor leveling product called "Patch All" by the Synkoloid Company of Compton, California, and Atlanta, Georgia. It is retailed by Boise Cascade Building Materials in the Western U. S.A. It comes in powder form called "plastic powder," and when mixed with cold water will give a working time of 10 to 15 minutes.

When mixed to a dough-like consistency it can be patted into place using the hands. The entire ornament should be covered by at least a one-inch thickness of the water-mixed "Patch All." The detail will only be as good as

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the care taken in preparing and placing the first portion of the material. In warm weather a setting time of 45 minutes is adequate before removal. A knife blade or wood chisel worked under the edges will start loosening it.

It must be held with one hand during the loosening to prevent it from falling.

This negative reproduction is usually not a sharp and desirable casting due to paint build-up and because of dents present in the piece being cast. What a person has, though, is the design and gross contour which can be worked and reworked to a desired casting.

Working the Castings In order to achieve the desired casting, the negative casting should be poured to a positive and back to a negative before it is made ready for casting in metal. Before each pouring the casting, whether negative or positive, needs to be worked to obtain better design and more sharpness. This

is best accomplished by using a clay product. The one Dr. Edwards found to be very satisfactory was one called "Roma Plastilina," obtained from an art supply store. It can be warmed in the hands which gives it a good working plasticity. Most of the contouring with the clay can be done with the fingers and some type of carving instrument. A pocket knife works quite well for cutting a sharp edge.

After the negative casting has been reworked with the clay it can be boxed in with slats of wood held together with wood clamps and poured with "Patch All" to make a positive cast. Vaseline again is the separating medium to use.

It is now easier to see the imperfections of the casting, because it is positive, and can be reworked with the clay for better contour and sharpness. When the casting is satisfactory it is then placed face up in a box made for it, and another pouring of "Patch All" g'lves a negative of good quality. To enable a foundry to cast in metal they need a positive of either wood or epoxy. To have a wooden ornament made for the foundry is very costly and unnecessary.

With the negative casting completed an epoxy material can be poured into the negative to produce the near-perfect model needed for the foundry. The epoxy Dr. Edwards purchased at a foundry supply company and found to be an ideal product for the final casting is called "Black Cast" made by I S 0 CAST SYSTEMS in Paramount, California. It is a two-component mix and must be stirred by mechanical means.

Dr. Edwards tried several separating ihediums, but he found Vaseline to be the most satisfactory release. The separation of the negative from the epoxy requires breaking the negative "Patch All" cast, but it is not needed again, provided the epoxy pour was satisfactory.

Several of the Mesker Bros. ornaments are availablefrom Dr. Edwards if the process is too involved for someone needing them quickly.

Send any questions regarding the technique to: Charles E. Edwards, D. D. S., 271 8 E. 200 No., Layton, Utah 84041, or call him at (801) 376-2373 in the evening.

73

ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE: AN EXAMPLE OF PRESERVATION BY ISOLATION

by James Dykman unique part of Utah's cultural heritage is found in a remote area of the Colorado plateau of southeastem Utah, where archaeological sites remain remarkably preserved due to their isolation and the weather conditions of the southwest. These Native American sites have existed for hundreds of years without being affected by the movement of Euro-American peoples into the four comers area; however, it is important to consider their future in an area that has a rapidly expanding population base.

The Anasazi (a Navajo word for "ancient ones"), who inhabited these areas in southeastern Utah, are a group of horticultural people that lived in this unique part of Utah, the four corners area of the United States, from approximately the time of Christ until the 14th century. In Utah specifically, the people apparently inhabited the area from about 450 until 1275 A.D. The number of Anasazi were estimated to exceed a half million people in the San Juan River drainage, a surprising number of people considering the present population of Utah. It is believed that a great deal could be learned about how these people could have supported such a large population.

The utilization of the area by the Anasazi left the physical evidence of thousands of houses, storage rooms, hunting camps, farmed areas, and ceremonial habitations, most of which now have decayed by natural process or have been vandalized by present populations that moved in to settle the area in the 19th century. There are, however, some dwellings that look much the same as when they were abandoned over 500 years ago. They represent the oldest standing man-made structures in the state of 74 Utah.

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These structures represent dwellings and storage areas that utilize the natural protective capabilities of the canyon walls. They consist of one to five sleeping rooms, numerous storage areas, and one to two Kivas (ceremonial structures). The locations of these sites are not identified here, an example of the archaeological community's preservation technique of isolation and secrecy to protect these and other important sites. Considering population pressure, this cannot work much longer. What can be done in the future to allow the Utah public to know about the resources as they have the right to?

It is a given fact that the population of the Colorado plateau will rise dramatically over the next twenty years as the development of the overthrust belt begins to meet the energy needs of America. The canyons of southern Utah will begin to feel the pressure of population influx and the inevitable discoveryof and heavier traffic to these areas. To preserve these sites and other selected areas, while still allowing the public knowledge of this cultural heritage, a great deal of thought and effort will have to be applied to the planning for the future. Presently these sites are under the administration of the Bureau of Land Management, and there is some protection given by that agency. To better the situation, three steps should be implemented for the preservation of the sites: (1) survey and adequate recording, by measured drawings and archaeological photographs, of selected sites that are in good condition; (2) increase in the easements that would restrict negative development of the area; (3) improvement of adequate patrols, by professionals, to ensure the protection of the sites, and better enforcement of the 1979 Archaeological Resource Protect ion

Act that was passed specificallyto strengthen the prosecution of site vandalism.

These preservation steps obviously do not include a number of standard stabilization techniques. Instead this is a simple plan-not to change the integrity of the area, but to maintain a resource that has been adequately preserved by good climate and isolation from man.

Photo credits and archaeological surveys attributed to the Utah Archaeological Research Corporation of Spanish Fork, Utah.

James Dy kmnn is Cultural Resource Advisor at the Utah State Historical Society.

Every color on this house r goes with every color on this house.

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You may have a less ambitious paint job in mind. But, no The house above is painted in 39 differentcolors. None matter how many colors you use, you can't go wrong with of them clash. Honest Ameritone Color Key Paint We did this mammoth paint job to demonstrate our Visit your local Ameritone dealer or Howells Stores exclusive,infallible system for color selection.It's called Color Key. And it works like this: today and ask to see their Color Key display. It's just We put all the colors in the world into two color palettes, one more reason to use long-lasting Arneritone Paint.

Color Key 1and Color Key 2. Every color in a m ~ r i t o n ~ "Available at Howells Stores located in: Color Key1 goes with every other color in I CQ~QU k@Ym Salt Lake City, Orem and Ogden,Utah; and G h r Key 1.Color Key 2 works the same way.

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The house aboveis painted all in Color Key 2 LJpaint

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The historic Hale House, Hentage Square, Li)s Angeles, California. (After this picture was taken, the house was repainted its original nine colors.)

Ameritone Paint Coyhwation,Long Beach, California, a member of the GROW GROUP 01980

A commitment to excellence .

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The above interior is the Parlor in the Kecrrns Mansion currently the Governor's residence

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by JackEhlers

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utldlng is designed and built for specific uses, by and for people, usually on a limited budget and influenced by the desires, opinions, and prejudices of those involved. When an architect is included, it is hoped that his experience and dedication guide and organize these influences into a pleasing, useful, and affordable product.

Buildings, recognized by people as successfullyfulfilling their needs and having some special beauty or interest as they age, gain the now-honored title of being "historic".

However, around us stand a heritage of many good buildings which, due to a higher degree of expected comforts and the requirements of changing codes, no longer meet the requirements of people. These are the buildings to which Ehlers and Ehlers Architects and their Associates are devoted.

(1) The office of Ehlers and Ehlers Architects was an underused and neglected five-unit apartment that now has a vibrant modern interior.

(2) T h e marble and cast stone Chapel at Plainview, New York, was constructed from the pieces of a pavilion that had to be removed from the site of the New York World's Fair. ( 3 ) Pioneer Memorial Museum, designed

by Arnold H. Ehlers, was influenced by the nostalgia of the old Salt Lake Theatre, and the recently constructed Carriage House behind the museum blends well with the older building and displays many artifacts of early Utah transportation.

(4) For true value, the most productive type of reuse is the familiar, old abandoned building consigned to be demolished and hauled away but instead spared for new productive use.

Buildings can usually be rehabilitated to meet all codes, handicapped considerations, cooling, heating, lighting, and decor comforts . . . returning to the community an up-to-date landmark with its dignified original design emphasized, respected, and protected, ready to serve the owner or taxpayer through the next generations. Reuse investment is one half the cost of a new building, and the example of our predecessors is usefully and historically preserved. '

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454 South 200 West Salt Lake City, Utah 84107

Photo courtesy. Kentucky Wood Floors Inc.

801-266-3743 -

UTAH'S LOST ARCHITECTURE. . . THE SALT PALACE Built in 1899, and located at N i n t h South between Main and State Streets, the original Salt Palace was part of a large resort complex intended t o be "The Coney Island of the West." According t o a 1908 advertisement, the resort featured a "Scenic Railway; the finest Bicycle Track in t h e West, 5000 Capacity; Ye Olden Mill; Circle Swings; Miniature Railway; Dancing Pavilion, 6 0 feet x 130 feet; Picnic Grounds; Swings and Amusements for Children; Brass and String Orchestra; Held's S P Band, 18 Pieces, and Balloon Ascension with Fire Shoot Drop."

T h e architect of t h e Salt Palace itself was Richard K.A. Kletting, who also designed the Saltair Pavilion and t h e Utah State Capitol Building. Covered with rock salt, t h e elaborate building burned to t h e ground in 1910 and was never rebuilt.

Utah PreservationIRestoration Publication/@ 1981 University Services, a Utah Corporation11 159 East 2nd AvenueISalt Lake City, Utah 84103