A piece of Salt Lake City street history resurfaces during construction project

SALT LAKE CITY — A project to repave West Temple has unearthed an interesting period in downtown Salt Lake City history.

Salt Lake City transportation engineers said they found that what is believed to be old brick or cobblestone as they repaired the road between 300 South and Market Street, including its intersection with Market Street.

The small segments of cobblestone visible Friday morning appeared to match old photos of downtown Salt Lake City in Utah’s historic photo collection, while records show the old cobblestone could date back to the 1880s before it was covered up over a century ago. At least the eastern side of the old road was paved over again by Friday afternoon.

“I think this is a really cool way to have glimpses of Salt Lake City history,” said Chris Merritt, Utah’s historic preservation officer.

The finding tells a story of how roads in the city changed over time.

Most of Salt Lake City’s roads were designed not long after pioneers settled in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Joseph Smith created a plan called the Plat of Zion in 1833 that was implemented by Brigham Young with a few tweaks, including building 132-foot wide streets within a grid system. As noted by the Deseret News, they were created to be wide enough for a wagon team to turn around without “resorting to profanity.”

These roads were entirely dirt for the first few decades, but that began to change as Utah’s population grew. The transcontinental railroad made it easier for people to move throughout the country. Salt Lake City’s population nearly doubled from about 12,000 in 1870 to almost 21,000 in 1880.

“It went very quickly from a bustling frontier town to now a very quickly growing urban core,” Merritt told KSL.com. “Throughout the 1870s, we do see downtown Salt Lake City shifting from some core commercial districts into more of an urban environment.”

Its sudden growth sparked calls for infrastructure that did not exist in the city at the time, including water mains, sewer lines, natural gas and — of course — paved roads.

The section of cobblestone that resurfaced likely dates back to the mid-1880s. A group of residents approached the Salt Lake City Council with a petition to build cobblestone crossings at West Temple and 300 South, the Salt Lake Herald-Republican reported in September 1885.

This was a common request at this time, Merritt explains. People viewed cobblestone roads as cleaner and safer than dirt roads, so they could travel downtown to eat at restaurants or attend operas without getting their suits or dresses dirty.

“By the 1880s, you do see a shift of many people in Salt Lake City trying to move from the Old West of dirt roads to a more urban infrastructure,” he said. “You see that throughout the 1880s and into 1890s.”

Only a few road sections of the city had cobblestone, though. It was mainly reserved for well-trafficked roads and intersections, but another revolution turned roads into what people are accustomed to today.

Automobiles began to arrive in Utah around the turn of the century. Henry Ford debuted his Model T in 1908, which made the vehicles more accessible. Other technological advancements happening at the same time led to the conversion to asphalt streets.

Merritt authored a study on the history of Salt Lake City’s garbage, where he found that garbage was used to flatten and level streets to make way for asphalt. As for the city’s old streetcar lines and its few cobblestone roads, they weren’t removed; they were paved over.

In this case, the cobblestone roads on West Temple were first completely paved over by at least 1911, if not earlier. One photo in state archives shows crews paving a portion of the road in 1908.

That also leads to fun little glimpses of history with every new project over a century later. Salt Lake City transportation is reconstructing West Temple from North Temple to 400 South downtown, where new pavement, crosswalks and bus boarding islands are installed along with buffered bike lanes.

Construction crews uncovered some of the old streetcar lines along State Street last year, as well. Merritt said these types of findings will likely happen again and again.

“We just build our history on someone else’s history,” he said. “Unless we’re going 3 feet below ground surface and replacing it curb to curb, there’s going to be pockets of intact history all over our city streets.”

Read the full story on KSL.com here.

Related:  Could Salt Lake City’s west side get historic designation?