From late 1930 to mid-1931, the “White Way” in Park City was a heated topic in local politics and business. Luckily, it’s not what you’re thinking. The “White Way” in our town had nothing to do with race or racism. In Park City, the “White Way” meant a new lighting system for Main Street.

Discussion of improved lighting on Main Street began in earnest in late September 1930. Generally, the City Council was in favor of the civic improvement, and The Park Record was positive in their reporting about the concept. On Dec. 5, after a few discussions had happened in council meetings, there was a town hall to discuss lighting Main Street, with the paper telling business owners and nearby residents to “be there.”

The meeting was fruitful in its discussion. A representative of the local Utah Power & Light Company gave an outline of the proposed system, which would begin at the bottom of Main Street by the Union Pacific Depot, and would have 43 light poles zig zag up Main Street to Pezeley’s Market, about where the Brewpub lot is today.

The new system would have underground wiring and the poles would have a more ornamental look, replacing basic light poles with overhead wiring. The few businesses that had front porches stretching over the sidewalk would have to remove them — which Charley Chong, owner of the Senate Café, did the day after the meeting in anticipation of the project going through. Construction was estimated to take several weeks, but all of the work would be done by local workers — a big need during the Great Depression, as many people in Summit County needed work (though we had it better than other places, as the mines and most businesses remained open).

The biggest piece of discussion was the cost. As the city did not have much of a budget during the Great Depression, the funding would have to come from the Main Street business owners. The Utah Power & Light Company would over approximately $6,000 (roughly $126,000 today), and the rest of the Main Street business would have to put up around $12,000 between them, paid out over 10 years. At the meeting, most were in full favor, but these costs would stir up a few vocal business owners for the first few months of 1931.

A committee formed to work on the project surveyed the Main Street property owners and found that a vast majority approved of the project, making City Council comfortable to bring proposals for the work to their meetings for a vote. But in the January meetings, a small group appeared in protest of the “White Way.”

Led by A.R. Haustein, they took over the discussion portion of the meetings with fiery language in opposition of the lighting improvements. The Park Record showed its stance, with a comment at the end of its report on the Jan. 9 meeting, saying Haustein and others displayed a strange “eagerness to prevent a progressive move by the city administration for the benefit and betterment of the citizens in general.” Haustein later returned to council with a petition of signatures of owners opposed to the project, but it was found that almost all of the signers no longer lived in Park City.

At a special Jan. 23 council meeting, councilors unanimously passed a resolution to move forward with the project, despite protests from Haustein, who had brought two lawyers to the meeting to make oral arguments against the project. Their stance was that the project, in general, was a good idea, but the timing was bad and would put financial strain (or worse) on business owners due to the Depression. The councilors noted their concern but countered that the new lighting system would provide jobs and financial benefit for Main Street businesses once operational.

Fourteen companies put in a bid for the project (showing how readily people needed work), and the council chose the Silver Construction Company from Salt Lake, which employed an almost entirely local crew for the project. By the time everything was sorted out, construction was delayed until April and May of 1931.

In regular Park City fashion, they decided to have a celebration and Mardi Gras-style parade to commemorate the new “White Way.”

Just before dusk on June 11, 1931, Parkites paraded from the Denver & Rio Grande depot up Main Street to the intersection with Daly Avenue and then back down to City Hall (the Museum today), where they waited for the sun to set before the Mayor turned on the new lights. Revelers then partied through the night, to the displeasure of many, with The Park Record calling it a “wild orgy – and a discredit to” Park City and the effort to install “the most modern and perfect street lighting system in the state,” which had been specially designed for Park City.

Park City Loves A Parade: Our Parades, Processions and Protests from Past to Present runs in the Museum’s Tozer Gallery until April 4, 2027. Learn all about the creative and interesting ways Parkites have celebrated our town, mourned our loved ones, and stood up for our beliefs.

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As shown in the Park City Museum’s latest exhibit (up through March next year), Parkites are no stranger to putting on a parade. We gather to celebrate our town and country with a variety of displays. The most notable parades are, of course, the large Fourth of July and Miners’ Day parades down Main Street and Park Avenue, but other local favorites include the Olympic homecoming parades and the annual Howl-o-ween dog parade.

For a long time, Park City had a parade each year on Memorial Day, previously Decoration Day and a few other names before Memorial Day gained broader popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, with the holiday officially recognized as a federal holiday in 1971.

In reporting on Memorial Day festivities, The Park Record most often called it Memorial Day, but also used Decoration Day — and sometimes both in the same article!

The first reported celebration with a parade occurred in 1891, in which a parade moved from Main Street toward both cemeteries (Park City and Glenwood), where bands played, Parkites decorated graves, and speakers gave tribute. The Park Record noted that “a large number of people went to the burying grounds and all felt that the memory of departed comrades, relatives and friends had received just tribute.”

The following year, the paper shared that “arrangements have been perfected for one of the largest parades and most interesting ceremonies ever held on a like occasion      in this camp.” The Park Record was prone to exaggeration for much of its history, especially when it came to describing parades, but this early in our history, the description was probably fairly accurate.

The 1890s saw a general enthusiasm with the holiday, with Park City hosting a parade and ceremonies at the cemeteries each year. The record generally goes silent for the early 1900s, before kicking back in every year again in the 1910s and continuing into the 1940s.

The parades in this period usually started around Welsh, Driscoll and Buck and continued to one or both of the cemeteries, where the ceremonial aspects of the holiday took place. For the 1911 parade, The Park Record described “crowds of people winding their way to the silent cities of the dead, laden with flowers to strew, on the last resting place of loved ones gone before.”

Over the course of time, different groups helped to organize the festivities, but the Frank E. Peterson American Legion post No. 14 in Park City managed the year-to-year operations. Sometimes they asked the town’s numerous fraternal organizations to join the parade, while in other years they focused on youth participants with Scout troops and junior and high school bands. The Park City Military Band was always a mainstay in addition to the Legion.

After the end of World War II, ironically enough, support for the holiday declined in Park City, with no mentions of a parade in the paper since 1947. This, of course, coincides with Park City’s decline as a whole before pivoting to a ski resort economy in 1963. Parades did happen until at least then, as the museum collections contain a few photographs from that year’s Memorial Day parade.

While a parade on Memorial Day fell out of favor, cemetery visitation continued and by the 1980s was being promoted by the Glenwood Cemetery Association. Today, the museum hosts an annual ceremony at the Glenwood each final Monday in May.

“Park City Loves A Parade: Our Parades, Processions and Protests from Past to Present” runs in the museum’s Tozer Gallery until April 4, 2027. Learn all about the creative and interesting ways Parkites have celebrated our town, mourned our loved ones, and stood up for our beliefs.

Dalton Gackle is the Park City Museum research coordinator.

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It was only open for a few years yet the Park City Silver Mine Adventure, where visitors were lowered into the old Ontario silver mine to get an “authentic” mine experience, left a lasting impression — especially on the children lucky enough to become miners for an hour or two. At the Museum, we still field questions almost every week about whether the attraction is still open (and if we are said attraction).

Unfortunately, the Silver Mine Adventure closed ca. 1999. As I wrote a few years ago, there was no major story, no announcement — the mine experience just closed, never to reopen. Just like the Ontario Mine itself in 1981.

After that original story, a few more details have come to light, as people shared their memories of what happened.

The building continued to be referred to as the Silver Mine Adventure building for a few more years after the experience had closed (and not the Ontario Mine) — a testament to how popular and notable the attraction had become. It even hosted some other events, like film screenings and the Mountain Bikers Bash each year.

Several problems ultimately appeared to kill the Silver Mine Adventure. All three are based on people’s memories and testimony, with no archival confirmation as of yet.

The first issue: as an attraction inside a former mine, the Silver Mine Adventure had to keep liability insurance up to date. Unfortunately, that insurance allegedly climbed year over year, trending in an untenable direction. This is according to longtime Parkite and former Silver Mine Adventure employee Marianne Cone and several other locals with memories of the experience closing.

The second problem was also cost-related. The Silver Mine Adventure operated every day, and — as mentioned before — was quite popular. With the constant flow of guests into the mine, the hoist cable for the cage (the mine elevator) wore out and needed to be replaced. A steel, braided cable over 1,000 feet long would have been incredibly expensive to replace, even for a successful business in a booming economy.

Issue three was an alleged self-inflicted wound. With its incredible success and reputation, longtime local Rory Murphy (who helped launch and run the experience) related in an interview that the Silver Mine Adventure appeared on the radar of Six Flags Entertainment Corporation. Six Flags decided to invest in or buy the Silver Mine Adventure and, as with all of its other holdings, open the business up to the stock market. Apparently, and unfortunately, Six Flags did not advertise its new holding, so when the Silver Mine Adventure launched on Wall Street, no one knew what it was, and the stock fairly quickly tanked, making the local Park City attraction a casualty of the worldwide stock exchange.

Whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, why the Silver Mine Adventure closed, it was a big loss to Park City. While the Park City Museum contains real mining equipment and hands-on mining experiences, nothing beats the real thing.

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Carrie Vivian Hodgson arrived in Park City in 1904 and ran a jewelry store at 363 Main Street until her death in 1968. The store sold jewelry, watches, clocks, cameras and lamps, among other electric or mechanical household items, and was well known along the Wasatch Back.

Originally, Carrie ran the store with her husband, Charles. Almost everyone in town knew her and loved her — everyone except her husband, anyway. In defiance of societal expectations of women in the 1910s, Carrie divorced Charles, kept the store, and began a life of legendary romance with some of Park City’s bachelors while maintaining a highly regarded reputation in her business and social circles.

According to the divorce file, Carrie had regularly “sought the society of men” (and, reportedly, women) who were not her husband both in their home and elsewhere. Charles, after learning of her infidelity, confronted Carrie, who told him the matter was “none of his business.”

Carrie not only managed a successful business, but she was an integral part of Park City’s operation. Until her eyesight failed her toward the end of her life, she was Park City’s weatherperson, keeping the town up to date on what to expect in the coming days and weeks.

This would have been important to the ranchers in the area, but also for miners needing to hike to work each day, especially in the winter. Undoubtably, Carrie consulted the Farmer’s Almanac for Utah to make her weather predictions based on data available from prior years.

She was also the official Union Pacific timekeeper in Park City for many years. Timekeepers had various roles depending on the station and the era. Carrie, spanning her work over several decades, likely took care of most of the duties assigned to timekeepers over the years.

Duties included noting how many hours rail employees worked, taking care of their payroll as they arrived at or left from the station, and managing trains on the railroad section where they were stationed (coordinating the time) so that two trains would not meet each other unceremoniously.

She perhaps endeared herself to the role due to her connection with watches and clocks at her business.

Aside from having an extensive social circle, Carrie also befriended many an animal, raising quite a few at her home. She was hardly ever seen without her dog, but her favorite animals were horses — and she was an avid rider. She was fond of American paint horses and kept several in her own stables near Main Street. She also had land outside town with a pasture for her horses.

A cigar smoking, Model-T driving character, Carrie Vivian Hodgson set an example for women in Park City of what they could do and be. She ran a prosperous business, lived independently, served her community, and cared for animals, too.

It’s no wonder Parkites recall her wonderful spirit in newspaper clippings, oral histories, and comments on social media posts about her.

The Park City Museum is hosting guided tours of the historic Glenwood Cemetery every Tuesday and Thursday from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. through the end of August. Tickets are $15 per person. Sign up online or contact Diane Knispel at education@parkcityhistory.org.

Dalton Gackle is the Park City Museum’s research coordinator.

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This is the second article covering Park City’s earliest skiers. The first ran on January 24.

The Park Record often published articles and interest pieces from around the country if they thought the story might be relevant to Parkites or if they were particularly fascinating or novel. The former was most likely the case when they published a long interest piece on snowshoeing in January 1882.

Early skiing was sometimes referred to as snowshoeing. In context, it is different than using snowshoes to stay on top of the snow. The article mentions taking a snow-shoe ride, going downhill, and coasting. Says the story, “we can have the finest ‘run’ in the country.” They go on to describe the activity — strapping two of the “long nines” to their feet and straddling a single pole for slowing down and helping steer their direction.

The Park Record including the article in the paper indicates that Parkites would find a connection to it, meaning that “snowshoeing,” or skiing, was not an uncommon activity in Park City by 1882.

A few weeks later, in February, the paper gave a local account of a skier: “The best sport to be had in this weather,” they reported, “is to follow Shorty Morris when he goes out to practice on his snowshoes.” They fantasized about watching “him glide up and down Main Street.”

Shorty worked at the Ontario Mill (where he was noted to be an “industrious” worker) until 1892 when he borrowed money from several friends, took all the money he and his family had, stole some of his wife’s jewelry and disappeared. No one heard from him again. He left his wife and two children behind without any savings.

In the first article on early reports of Park City skiers, Ole and Lars Gunderson figured prominently. One of them might have been the “L Gunderson” mentioned as the challenger for a ski race in Park City. But another possibility has emerged: Louis Gunderson (no known relation to brothers Ole and Lars). Louis was mentioned in a civil suit in December 1882. A Norwegian immigrant, Louis died on March 26, 1886, and is buried in the Park City Cemetery. He was married to Alette (or Aletta) “Caroline” Baltzersen. Louis is a likely candidate as an early skier, with his name a close match to the race challenger and with his Norwegian heritage.

But Ole Gunderson cannot be ruled out. His children’s letter indicates that Ole lived up Ontario or Empire Canyons and would ski down into town. While that information is unavailable, the 1900 census lists an Ole and Jerma (possibly Julia) Gunderson living at Mountain Dell in Parley’s Canyon. The census notes the Norwegian couple had been in the U.S. about 15 years (perhaps a few years off) and that Ole was both a farmer and a shoemaker (listed as his primary job). This would track with the Gunderson children’s letter about their father’s ability to make skis.

In the letter, they say, “Our mother told us how he would plane down the rough native lumber and would make the curve in them by planing the end down thinner. Then he would put the ends in hot potato water in a boiler and heat them until they could be bent. He would then put them against the wall with some pressure on the end to get the bend in them. There they would remain until dry, and they would retain that bend. We think he received about $3 a pair for the skis.”

While it may never be possible to know exactly who the first skier in Park City was, it is certain that skiing had arrived by the early 1880s. This period of Park City’s history saw an influx of Scandinavian immigrants, who arrived with a pastime of strapping shaped planks to their feet and gliding across the snow.

The Park City Museum is hosting a Free Admission Day on Saturday, March 16, made possible by the Summit County Restaurant Tax Grant Program.

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The following is an excerpt from an oral history with three of the Sundstrom children (Doris, Patricia, and Albert), who grew up at 1129 Park Avenue, interviewed by Dalton Gackle in 2019. Their home is featured on the Park City Museum’s Annual Historic Home Tour on June 17. The tour goes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and features thirteen buildings. Learn more and purchase tickets at parkcityhistory.org/event/annual-historic-home-tour-2023/.

Doris: As I am sitting here, I can remember at nighttime, my bed and my oldest sister Carol’s bed being the couch in the front room. Because there was a bedroom and a front room at that time. I can remember the sink being in that same room… dripping water for whatever water was needed. Then I can remember it being on the other side of the wall because a kitchenette was added. The couch, sleeping on the couch, that was the bed each night for a while, a few years.

Albert: I can remember when our dad put a shower in. We bathed in the number three tub in the kitchen. I remember when he put the shower in, that was kind of an exciting time. To be able to get clean that way.

Patricia: Speaking of getting the shower in… at that time the water was heated through a coal stove and it would heat the water into the water tank. Hot water really was limited. But I enjoyed the shower so much that I would shower and shower. Then my dad finally turned the valve so that it would turn the hot water off. I would have to finish my showers in the cold water. Because I wasn’t allowing anybody else to enjoy the nice hot water. I wanted it all for myself.

Patricia: I am going to say it was probably about 1949 when we got the shower. Our folks ordered the shower through… maybe the Sears or the Montgomery catalog. There was hardware store here ran by Mr. Durante and maybe they ordered it through him. The shower came in on the train. Bob’s dad got his truck and they picked up the shower and brought it down to our house.

Albert: My recollection is… I was thinking I was about 10, 11 years old. I went with my father down to the depot to pick up the shower. It was a metal shower.

Patricia: So up to that point, we bathed in a number three round metal tub in the kitchen. We took turns, didn’t we? I was always last.

Albert: We took turns.

Patricia: Yes, we did take turns.

Albert: Our dad came home from work and there was hot water for him. He filled the tub up and everybody had to go all different directions while he took his bath.

Dalton: I wanted to ask you to tell me some stories about your family home. I believe you told me it was originally a barn and then a machine shop.

Albert: It was originally a barn, I guess for horses. Then my dad turned it into a machine shop he had a lathe and I guess other equipment in there. Then he converted it into a house. It had a bedroom and a front room. Later on, he built on the back. He put in a kitchen.

Patricia: Nowadays, they call them great rooms.

Albert: Yes, it was a great room. It was where we met morning, noon and night. Then, later on, he built a bedroom onto the north side. After that, then he moved a room from his old house over and put it on and that was my bedroom. That’s the back room of the house.

Dalton: The additions he’s doing, are these fairly quick in succession or is it over a long period of time?

Albert: Probably quite a bit of time spent between them. I guess when enough money came in, they could get the material to do it with.

Doris: The needs were there because the family was growing and needed separate rooms.

Albert: Money was tight.

Patricia: Dad did not add the kitchen on until after I was born and that was in 1940. So, it was after that. Up to that point all four of us kids… what is now the living room, was the bedroom, was the kitchen and the living room.

Patricia: The little house is bits and pieces.

Albert: Pieces here and pieces there and probably a piece or two from the mine.

The full oral history with the Sundstroms is available in the Museum’s Hal Compton Research Library.

The post Way We Were: Piecing together a home appeared first on Park Record.

Politics are not often polite. And that phenomenon is not unique to today (or just the U.S.). Politics unfortunately lead to violence far too often.

In one case in Park City, the politics of election day 1887 and the politics of vigilante justice combined for a fatal end.

On August 1, 1887, George Joseph Hughes (referred to most often as G.J., or “Joe” to his friends), a timberman at the Ontario Mine, and a few of his buddies were having a conversation in the Cupit and Brennan Saloon on Main Street (likely at the spot where 591 Main Street is today).

Neal Mulloy came in and started making a fuss about how he voted for D.C. McLaughlin for state legislator but scratched the rest of his ticket. Hughes’ group responded that such practice was a mockery of democratic procedure. Mulloy then became heated and accused Hughes of participating in the lynching of Black Jack Murphy in 1883. Hughes admitted he was there but did not participate in the train hijacking or hanging of Murphy. To this Mulloy responded by calling Hughes a liar and that they should take the argument outside.

The men and their fellow bar patrons moved out back, on the ground between Main Street and Park Avenue. Hughes was a well-built man who was much larger than Mulloy, and would have been able to handle himself in a fight, according to The Park Record. Hughes announced that he was not willing to fight over the matter, but Mulloy would not let it go. John T. Sweeney had handed Mulloy a pistol as everyone made their way outside, which Mulloy then began flashing to the crowd and using threatening language toward Hughes.

Hughes was not in the mood for a fight, much less a duel, so he turned and began walking back down the stairs to head into the saloon. At the top of the stairs, he turned back to Mulloy for an unrecorded reason. Mulloy, in his anger, fired a shot, which hit Hughes directly in the left nipple, with the bullet traveling downward and lodging in his right lung.

Hughes fell from the top of the stairs into the arms of Jim Steven at the bottom. Steven then pulled Hughes into the bar. Mulloy, Sweeney and others fled the scene, while most of the witnesses stayed, waiting for a policeman to arrive. One happened to be nearby and heard the shot. The witnesses noted Mulloy as the shooter. The officer was able to find and bring Mulloy into jail.

Hughes survived the initial shock and actually regained consciousness as doctors looked over his wound in the bar. They gave him a swig of liquor to numb the pain. He was removed to his home nearby where he passed away a short time later. The coroner noted that he was amazed Hughes survived the shot for any amount of time.

Mulloy and Sweeney were found guilty of first-degree murder (Sweeney for providing the weapon). It was noted in testimony that none of the men involved in the dispute had been drinking. Hughes left a widow and two children in Park City. According to The Park Record, “he had many friends and his tragic death is deeply regretted by the entire community.”

The Park City Museum is hosting a lecture titled “The John Murphy Lynching – A 139-Year-Old Cold Case” given by Sandy Brumley and Josh Grotstein on Wednesday, June 14 from 5-6 p.m. at its Education and Collection Center at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.

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Content warning for description of injuries.

The Park City Museum’s Annual Historic Home Tour returns on June 17 after a three-year hiatus. This year’s tour covers homes and buildings on lower Park Avenue, from the 1100 block to the 1300 block.

Most of the homes housed mining men and their families. As a dangerous profession, tragic loss of life was not uncommon. The Miners’ Hospital at 1354 Park Ave., which is part of the tour, has obviously seen the most death on the street, but two tragedies approximately 10 years apart stand out from the homes on the tour this year.

At 1304 Park Ave., tragedy found the doorstep of the Cunnington family (the second owners of the home) in 1913. William Cunnington (a.k.a. Willie or Billy) worked as a night watchman for the Silver King Coalition Mines Company. He and his wife Drucilla had at least four children.

On April 26, 1913, William was walking home from work, where his route likely would have taken him from the Silver King Mine down King Road, then a left turn onto Park Avenue where he would then travel almost exactly 1 mile home – that is if he was a watchman up at the Silver King Mine. If he was a watchman at the Silver King Coalition Building along Park Avenue, rather, his walk would have been about four-tenths of a mile.

It’s not clear where he started his walk home, but he was apparently nearby the Denver & Rio Grande depot (now Harvest) on the 800 block of Park Avenue, just on the edge of the Silver King Coalition Building, when he attempted to hop aboard an ore car pulled by horses that was heading down Park Avenue toward his home. He unfortunately slipped and fell under the 18,950-pound loaded car, which proceeded to run over his lower left leg and right foot (turning the foot into “jelly” according to The Park Record).

His legs were crushed, causing massive blood loss, and doctors were unable to perform any emergency surgery in his delicate condition – back then, they would not have had any blood on hand to perform a major surgery like amputation or trying to fix the legs and foot; They would have needed someone with a compatible blood type to sit alongside the surgery for a blood transfusion. He passed away later that night. His obituary in The Park Record noted “He was a devoted husband and father and an industrious and good citizen.”

Just up the street, 1280 Park Ave. only saw one family in its original historic period. Frank Dejonghe, a Belgian immigrant, purchased the property in 1905. He lived in the home with his wife Mary and their eight children.

Frank worked as a timberman (someone who installed the supports and beams to hold up the walls and ceiling of a mine tunnel and keep them from collapsing). He originally worked for over a decade with the Judge Mining & Smelting Company, leaving that company and becoming an independent contractor in 1922.

On Augusts 7, 1923, just over 10 years after William’s accident, Frank was working in a section of the Judge Mine being leased by another group when one of the timbers he was installing slipped and allowed a large slab of rock to fall from the ceiling of the mine tunnel. It crushed and killed him instantly. In his obituary, The Park Record noted that “He was held in high esteem by his employers and was an industrious, dependable workman and a good citizen…”

Learn about these men and their families, plus several others, along with historic architecture, at the Park City Museum’s Annual Historic Home Tour. The tour goes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and features thirteen buildings. 1304 Park Ave. is featured in the brochure but will not be accessible to view inside. Learn more and purchase tickets at https://parkcityhistory.org/event/annual-historic-home-tour-2023/.

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One of Park City’s unique buildings sits at the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Heber Avenue. Why is it unique? For starters, the building faces Heber Avenue, and yet its address is 628 Park Ave., so it’s interesting the address is with the perpendicular street. The former Eley Motor Co. and Kimball Art Center building across the street at 638 Park Ave. also shares in this street numbering intrigue.

The answer lies with historic maps and photographs. Maps show another structure just to the north of the building originally. That other building, a blacksmith shop, was along Heber Avenue. It was eventually torn down, however, for Heber Avenue to be widened; 628 Park Ave., then, took over as the building along Heber Avenue. Historic photographs, like the one shown here, allow us to see that the original entrance to the building was also on Park Avenue, not on Heber Avenue as it is today.

But a building with an odd street number is not necessarily anything to write home about, or to write a Way We Were article about. The real reason 628 Park Ave. is so unique is that its construction offers a glimpse at Park City’s shared heritages.

Of course, Park City got its start as a community because of the silver, lead, and zinc mining industry that developed around the ore in its hills. One could argue Park City would not exist without the mining developments here. Perhaps it would only have popped up as skiing grew around the country from the 1930s through the 1980s. Or perhaps it would have been settled as a milling and ranching community, as the Snyderville area had been (despite our mining history, our current most famous building is probably the McPolin barn, a remnant of the vibrant ranching that was the secondary major business in the area).

As the mining industry began work on Treasure Hill and in Woodside Gulch, Empire Canyon, and Ontario Canyon, a community developed in the valley below. Naturally, Main Street was the business district, although a few businesses popped up on Park Avenue (and Chinese residents and sex workers set up shop on or near Swede Alley). One of those Park Avenue businesses was a boarding house, located at 628 Park Ave.

This home is a central passage plan house, where a central passage goes down the middle from the entrance, with a room, or rooms on either side. Additionally, one extra unique factor for 628 Park Ave. is the building was made with concrete, incredibly rare for a home built in the 1880s, especially in Park City. John and Mary Harwood lived in the home and roomed boarders who worked in non-mining businesses (until a 1901 law outlawing it, mine companies required their single miners to live in company housing near the mine). The building remained a boarding house and/or apartments through at least 1957.

In 1964, just as the Treasure Mountains resort was getting underway, a ski shop took over the building. Timberhaus Ski Shop turned the lower level into retail space and kept the apartments on the second floor for employees to live in. In 1973, they built the addition on the building’s now left side, with a greenhouse-style window making up most of the front façade. They also added a front entrance between the historic structure and the addition and closed off the original entrance on Park Avenue. The addition replaced a small one-story section toward the back left of the property. Timberhaus operated in the building from 1964 to 1985.

With the 1973 addition, 628 Park Ave. became an amalgamation of Park City’s mining community history and new skiing community. That skiing community, while still present, is no longer new. Park City’s ski resort development history is 60 years old this year (if you count the planning and development of Treasure Mountains or if you count Snow Park, the locals-only resort, that history is even older). Park City’s skiing history is just as important as our mining history. One could argue Park City would no longer exist if not for its reinvention into a ski resort destination and tourism economy.

Timberhaus’ addition to the building is 50 years old this year – that number is often a threshold for considering a building historic, so this one building is now historic for two different eras and architectural styles. It is an important symbol of the transition from our community and economy’s reliance on one industry to another. Park City Municipal does not currently recognize early Ski Resort and Community Development Era buildings in its historic sites inventory, meaning these important buildings – built ca. 1963-1975 – are not protected from demolition, destruction, or reconfiguration.

In its listing for 628 Park Ave., the building is designated as “significant” as opposed to “landmark,” meaning the building is still important, but it has been downgraded. This is due to the configuration of the original 1880s structure having been altered by the 1973 addition. But with the length of time that has passed since the addition and due to its importance in Park City’s pivot to skiing, 628 Park Ave. is possibly more historic than ever.

It is unique because no other building in Park City exemplifies our first mining era in combination with our first ski era. No other structure in town shows quite so drastically the meeting of one world with another.

The post Way We Were: Two worlds coming together appeared first on Park Record.

Park City was known, of course, for our rich silver deposits long before we could co-lay claim to the best powder on earth. But one unanswered question remains unsolved: who first discovered ore in what would become Park City?

Since we don’t truly know the answer to this question, the Museum has skirted the answer by noting that the Flagstaff Mine, eventually owned and operated by E.P. Ferry and the Marsac Company (based in Grand Haven, Michigan), was the first ore-producing mine in the Park City area.

More than likely, Native peoples of the Northern Shoshone, Goshute, or Ute tribes found ore deposits in the time they spent in Park City in the warmer months prior to the arrival of Mormon settlers. While they might have used some of what they found, they did not create any operations to excavate it from the earth, nor did they commercialize the endeavor. That environmental exploitation would be left to the white American and European settlers and colonizers.

While there is also no record of exactly who found the first ore, several accounts have been documented all around the same time frame. The most common account is that of Colonel Patrick Connor encouraging his men to prospect for gold in their downtime – several of whom crested over the the Wasatch Range through Big Cottonwood Canyon and planted a stake in the ground for what would become the Flagstaff Mine. That event took place in 1868, though they could not return until 1869.

Also in 1869, in most recountings, Rufus Walker and Ephraim Hanks found an ore body that would become the Pinyon (or Pinion) Mine. That mine also took over the location of the Green Monster Mine, a deposit of copper, which is said to have been discovered by Hanks as well (along with Louis Simmons), but a few years earlier – in 1866. These mines, of course, were all further west than the mines that made Park City famous, closer to Bonanza Flat at Park City’s outskirts. The Pinyon was later taken over by the Crescent Mining Company, which was subsequently taken over by the Silver King Mining Company.

Walker and Hanks were also both involved in the discovery and development in the Walker and Webster Mine in 1869, which was slightly closer to town, nearby where the Mid Mountain Lodge at Park City Mountain resort sits today.

Regardless of the exact first discovery, one name that keeps popping up in most of the examples is Ephraim Hanks. Hanks, who originally ran a stagecoach stop, Pony Express station, and trading post at the Little Dell reservoir, was an early settler of the Park City area and had his hand in many of the early mining stakes. He is also one of the most colorful, wild, and interesting figures in Mormon history.

The Park City Museum is hosting part two of a lecture on the life of Ephraim Hanks, given by historian Sally Elliott and Summit County attorney (and Ephraim Hanks descendent) Margaret Olson titled “Ephraim Hanks, Early Park City Pioneer Part 2.” It will take place at the Museum’s Education and Collections Center at 2079 Sidewinder Drive on Wednesday, February 1 from 5 to 6 p.m. Please RSVP at parkcityhistory.org – this lecture is anticipated to reach capacity.

The post Way We Were: The mystery of Park City’s first ore discovery appeared first on Park Record.