Pioneer Semi-Centennial
Peter Marshall Recounting Plum Alley and The Chinese Tong and Mafia By Richard Markosian
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owntown Salt Lake City’s Main Street is probably best known as the home of Temple Square, where millions of lights (usually, but not this year) shine around the reflecting pond that rests just outside of the 130-yearold Mormon temple. Downtown is the place where pious Latter-Day Saints worship and do billions of dollars of business, from banking, to insurance, to books, publishing and broadcasting in dozens of buildings throughout the city. But Salt Lake City has always had a strong counter-cultural element. As for gaining a greater understanding of the weird and macabre stories — that touch on the darker element of a people who attempt to please God in their worship and in their works, Pete Marshall’s Utah Book and Magazine Shop is something like a caretaker of a museum on the other side of Salt Lake City. Pete’s family has done business in Salt Lake City for nearly 100 years, and Pete’s shop is one of the last
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window-display shops that celebrates the seasons and the holidays with a well-thought-out display that includes “Letters to Santa”, faces of elves, and dozens of antique Santa figurines throughout the ages, which Pete says, “aren’t for sale.” Inside, Pete and sister Helen might look a bit rough around the edges, but they are always happy to greet customers and help them find the perfect gift. Today, I’m seeking stories. Pete, never one to disappoint, shares three stories that describe the seedy underbelly of Salt Lake City. Pete shares with me first the story of how, when he was eight-years old, his father, uncle and older brother were asked by Harvey Lee Scheen, the unofficial Mayor of Plum Alley, to come and clear everything out. “You can take anything you want and it’s all free.” Sheen had brokered a deal that would end in the demolition of one of Salt Lake City’s most notorious blocks. “We got robes, knives, jewelry, tons of furniture … The secretaries were
