For Mary Jane Luke Wood, Midway’s golden days are tied to her family’s history. As the early owners of Luke’s Hot Pots, Luke Wood’s heritage is rooted in mineral pools and mountain spas.
What was once known as Luke’s Hot Pots, now the Mountain Spa, began in the late 1800s. Luke Wood remembers her grandmother, Cordelia Shelton, taking her to the pool. They’d pick up their tickets from the old soda fountain and swim.
Luke’s Hot Pots was not just a local swimming hole. It was everything, Luke Wood said. A community gathering area with a dance hall and restaurant, along with a leisurely place to relax in the hot pots or swim in the large interior pool.
Luke Wood said the place attracted visitors from across Utah.
“We’d have people from Vernal who brought kids in, people from Provo, people all over,” Luke Wood said.
Kids in the community learned to swim at Luke’s Hot Pots. It was the case for Luke Wood, but also for community members like James Kohler, who grew up in Midway alongside Luke Wood. The two were in the same classes growing up and both had family members who worked for Midway City.
“Most of the young people in the ’50s and early ’60s in Midway, you learn to swim at the Mountain Spa, Luke’s Hot Pots,” Kohler said. “Learning how to swim, you spend a lot of time wanting to cling to the side of the pool. … That’s a kind of memory that, I think, is probably common to a lot of us.”
Kohler studied geology and explained that most of the hot springs in Midway are focused near the Homestead crater. He said that, growing up, there were rumors that the crater was bottomless. Kohler explained that historically, there has always been interest in the city’s hot springs.
“We had fun in them as kids,” Kohler said.
Both Luke Wood and Kohler said Midway was a place rooted in community in those days. Kohler said it felt like being raised by a village of friends, family and neighbors.
“It was a small community where everybody knew everybody, and it was the type of community that … you were raised by the community,” Kohler said. “If you were out doing something, there would always be somebody there to keep you out of trouble.”
Luke Wood said the same.
“You could go anywhere, do anything. You never had to be afraid of anything,” Luke Wood said. “People watched out for everybody.”
Luke Wood’s father was the town marshal for 35 years in Midway before sitting on the council for four years.
“He loved Midway. He loved the people,” Luke Wood said.
Eventually, things changed for the Luke Wood family when owners Joseph and Pauline Erwin took over the Luke’s Hot Pots establishment. That family established Harvest Days, now Midway’s Swiss Days, with other community members and what’s now known as the Midway Boosters.
Luke Wood said that’s about when movie stars began coming to town. The well-connected Erwins brought in faces from across the country to perform at Midway Town Hall. That includes American actor and singer Roy Rogers.
“My uncle Tom put me on his shoulder so I could see over everybody’s head,” Luke Wood said. “Just to see Roy Rogers.”
Luke Wood still has the press clippings from old issues of The Park Record. She has binders of photos, articles about Luke’s Hot Pots and about happenings in Midway City.
In the past few decades, Luke Wood said she has noticed the city changing. These days, Luke Wood doesn’t recognize as many of her neighbors. She misses family and friends who have passed away, but Luke Wood said she still has a few family members to hold close.
Kohler said the Midway has become a kind of victim of its own success. Park City and Heber City began to grow, too. Then, the Wasatch Mountain State Park was established in 1961, and more development began coming to town.
“Midway began to change, of course,” Kohler said.
Throughout all of the change, though, Luke Wood said she has her memories to look back on — one filled with family, friends and community.
“I do have a rich history here,” Luke Wood said.
Luke Wood recorded her history in Midway and her life’s story through the Midway Historic Preservation Committee’s oral histories project. Her oral history video recording can be found at midwayhistoricpreservation.org.