Jacob Church
History 2700
Service Learning Project
11/29/01
Historic Down Town Cedar City
Settlers from the neighboring town of Parowan were the first to establish residency in Cedar City. Being next to the interstate has been good for the economy in Cedar and helps local businesses. Of course, there wasn’t always an interstate. Therefore, many of the first businesses built on Main Street, which at the time received the most travel. The business buildings of downtown Cedar City are some of the first structures to be built in the city. Cafes, mercantile stores, banks, bakeries, Tailor shops, the Livestock Company, and a Dentist office are some of the first businesses to occupy space on Main Street.
Today there are many businesses in this area. Businesses like Mr. R. Men’s Wear, China Garden Café, Clark and Linford Jewelers, Mountain West Books, and many more. Many of these buildings have changed dramatically over the years. All of these building have a great heritage to them. Many of these buildings have been standing over a century and have had a variety of businesses occupy their space. Each town or city has a legacy and its own unique history. Many cities in the world have lost historical buildings to modern architecture, but in small town U.S.A, such as Cedar, there is still historical evidence all around.
I have the opportunity, as a student at Southern Utah University, to do a service to the community and hopefully do some good for the Downtown Partnerships and Businesses. I have met with an enthusiastic city official by the name of Ron Cardon. He works in the Iron County Visitors Center in Cedar City, Utah. It was Ron who proposed the idea of doing the histories of these downtown historical buildings. Upon meeting with him, he immediately made a few phone calls to get me started in the right direction. He called a few of the business owners of the downtown area, who have expressed an interest in learning about the buildings in which they presently occupy. Among these, who were contacted are Byron Linford, of Clark and Linford Jewelers, and Brian Jorgensen of Mountain West Books. I have met with both of these men and know that they are both intrigued with the idea of having research done on their buildings. I was advised to choose only one of these buildings to do my service learning project on and I chose to learn about the Mountain West Book Store, located at 77 North Main, Cedar City, UT.
Angela McArthur of the Economic Development office has also been involved with the downtown area. She deals closely with the tourists, who visit the area. She was visiting Temple Square in Salt Lake City, when she noticed plaques on some of the old building in that area. She noticed it was something that caught the eyes of passing tourists and visitors. She thought it would be a good idea to do the same for the historic buildings in Cedar City. The plaque would hang on the building and would describe some of the personal historic information of the building. Such as the year the building was built, what it was originally built for, and what businesses have occupied it since.
The plaques could possibly help the downtown area with their business. Imagine that you are a first time visitor to the Cedar City area and like many visitors and tourists you want to do a little shopping around for souvenirs. You notice the plaques on the buildings and are fascinated with the age of the building and the information you just read. That might be the one thing that makes you want to go inside to look around. People have always been intrigued with history, but if nothing else the plaque will give a little more character and eloquence to the downtown area.
Intended Audience: With the monumental plaques on the buildings, everyone can benefit. The local people of Cedar City can read the plaques and learn something about the history of their hometown. It might even convince the locals of the area to take a look inside once they read the little plaques. More importantly, upon realizing that they know very little about the town, it may actually spark an interest in some and give them the desire to do more research on the heritage of Cedar City. These plaques will mostly influence the tourists who are visiting for the first time. One thing almost all tourist like to do is learn a bit of the history behind the place they are visiting, it makes the visit more memorable and meaningful. Of course, it will also help the business owners of the area. They would all love to learn more and have a spotlight on their buildings.
Local Contact Persons or Agencies: One person who obviously has an interest in the plaques is Angela McArthur, since it was her idea. I have talked with her and she is thrilled about the idea of students helping out with the project. She can help find people to contact in order to make things happen.
Another person, who is involved with any history dealing with Cedar City, is York Jones. He has already done much research on the background of most of the buildings on Main Street. He as created a photo gallery in the City Office Building. The gallery contains many photographs of the buildings when they were still fairly new. I have been in to look at it and it is amazing to see the historical photos of these building and realize the change that has occurred in that area. I talked to York and he directed me to some history on microforms. The microform dated January 22, 1909, in the Southern Utah University Library, had some information on additions to the Cedar Mercantile. The article is titled Addition to Jones Block. I have added the article to the back of this project report. Also, along with that article is an ad for the Cedar Mercantile and the Bank of Southern Utah. Both the Cedar Mercantile and the Bank of Southern Utah occupied the building on 77 North Main, which is currently the Mountain West Book Store.
Janet Seegmiller has also been involved, along with York Jones, in the history of Cedar and the downtown area. Janet is a convenient contact for any student doing a local history project, because she works in the special collections library on the Southern Utah University campus. I met with her and she showed me some photos that pertain to the downtown businesses. She was very helpful and worked with me to find information about the history of the Mountain West Book Store. Some of these pictures are presented at the end of this paper.
I’ve also contacted Brian Jorgenson, who currently owns Mountain West Books. He came across some documents in the building that give a lot of good and important historical information about the building. He tried to locate the documents for me, but after spending quite a bit of time looking for them and not finding hide-nor-hair of the papers, he remembered that he had lent them out to some local historian. The problem is, he can’t remember to whom he lent these papers. His first thought was York Jones, but I talked to York and he doesn’t have them. But somewhere, someone has some important historical papers on the building. These papers would prove helpful in the research of the building’s background. Unfortunately for me, I can not report on them at this time.
Finally the person who got this whole project rolling was Ron Cardon. Ron works at the Iron County Visitor’s Center/Cedar City Area Chambers of Commerce Building. He has been closely involve with the downtown area and learned that the Downtown Partnerships and Businesses would love to see a history done about the buildings. He is eager to help in any way possible and has lots of connections and contacts. It was Ron who told me to get in contact with York Jones and Janet Seegmiller.
Workload for completing the project: I have spent many hours contacting people who are either involved with the history of the downtown area or who are connected with the creation of the historical plaques. While in the special collections library I was able to learn about some of the events that have been involved with the building.
William Rees Palmer, the secretary and one of the directors of Cedar Mercantile wrote in his autobiography about some events that transpired between him and ZCMI concerning Cedar Mercantile. Cedar Mercantile was buying all their merchandise from ZCMI in Salt Lake City. During the depression of 1929-1930 times were tough in Cedar and the Mercantile Business became indebted to ZCMI. One day a man named Alma Nelson, from Enterprise, came in the store and took Mr. Palmer aside and asked him what the store was worth. He then proposed that they should join together and buy it out. Nelson suggested that ZCMI would welcome the change. Mr. Palmer asked Nelson if he had talked about it with ZCMI and Nelson kind of dodged the question. This made Mr. Palmer suspicious of Mr. Nelson. It turns out that Nelson was later sent by ZCMI to work with Palmer and assist with collections and help in anyway. Part of which he would, at the end of each day, type a report of his work and send it up to ZCMI. On one occasion Mr. Palmer came across Nelson’s report. He found that Nelson was sending false reports in an effort to beat down the value of the business as low as he possibly could with the intention of buying the store for himself. Palmer confronted Nelson about it and Nelson denied everything. Things then went from bad to worse. It got to the point that Mr. Palmer wanted to get completely out of the business. He was tired of the way ZCMI was not dealing frank and honestly with him. Through a series of events Palmer was eventually able to work things out with ZCMI and Nelson was removed and was never seen by Palmer again. Ultimately ZCMI completely took over the Mercantile. Palmer gets into much more detail in his autobiography, which can be found in the Palmer Collection, Box 25, Folder17. The Palmer Collection can be located in the special collections in the SUU library.
As far as the plaques are concerned, I have done some checking into it. I have talked to several of the businesses and they have expressed interest in the plaque. The plaque would be about 10-12” square and on it would be inscribed some specific historical details about the business building. I called and talked to Wayne Clark at Clark and Linford Jewelers, where they do engravings on metal plaques. He suggested that the plaques be made either out of bronze or a heavy plastic. The bronze would be the best, since the plaque will hang on the outside of the building, because it can take the beatings from the weather and not lose color or form. The only problem with the bronze is the cost. He estimated that a 6x6” plaque with no more than 36 letters would cost right around $126 dollars. The cheaper way to go would be with the plastic plaques. Mr. Clark suggested that it would probably be the next best thing since it will be outside. It is also quite durable and can also look good. Of course, it won’t last as long as the bronze and won’t be as sharp looking either. The estimated cost of a 6x6” plastic plaque with about 36 letters would be around $40 dollars. The material for the plaque will have to be something to conceder in greater detail. Another place that might be able to help with the making of the plaques is Dixie Trophy, down in St. George. They are located at 695 North Bluff Street. I was not able to get an estimate from them, but they also do plaques of this type.
Technology-related resources or applications used in the project: The books and documents found in the special collections of the SUU library have been helpful in finding out the basic history and past events that have transpired in connection with the Downtown Partnerships and Businesses. For example, in York Jones’ book I learned that in 1907, many of the livestock men in Cedar consolidated their rangeland and sheep into one organization known as the Cedar Livestock Company. The Cedar Mercantile was built to supply the men of the Livestock Co. with grain, clothing, hay, and other supplies. During the same time the Bank of Southern Utah, which had been organized a few years earlier, was at a point of expansion and needed a larger facility. The Bank was then located in a little building called the Knell Building. Since many of the same people were affiliated with both the Bank and the Mercantile they decided to join and build a new building across the street from the Knell Building. The Bank of Southern Utah occupied the southeast corner of the building and the rest was for the Mercantile Business.
The microforms in the library are also useful if you want to find articles that have been written about the buildings. Like I mentioned earlier the microform dated January 22, 1909 has an article titled “Addition to Jones Block” which tells about adding on to the Mercantile/Bank building. I’m sure if one had the time to go through all the microforms on Iron County, they could find quite a few articles that would describe some of the history involving the downtown businesses. The photographs York Jones has collected have also been helpful in understanding what businesses have occupied the downtown area.
While I was down in the special collections in the SUU library, Mrs. Seegmiller helped me find several pictures of buildings as early as 1880’s to 1930’s. In regards to the building located at 77 North Main, presently Mountain West Books, we found that many businesses have occupied its space since it was first built. Some of which are of the following: Cedar Mercantile, the Livestock Company, Bank of Southern Utah, ZCMI, Stevens & Company, JR’s Department Store, to name a few.
Beneficiaries of project: Anyone involved or interested with the history of Cedar City, particularly with the downtown area, will benefit from this project. The plaques would be a reminder to the local people of Cedar City of their heritage. Many people probably have connections with the downtown businesses in some way or another and the histories done on the buildings could help people find out exactly how they are connected.
The history of the buildings will be greatly beneficial to the Downtown Partnerships and Businesses. They are all interested in learning more about the history of their buildings. Also, like I have already stated, the plaques will be beneficial to visitors of Cedar City who are interested in learning little tad-bits of background information the buildings and Cedar City in general.
Connections to other service-learning projects in history: The downtown area is of great significance to Cedar City. It has played a large part in the economy of the City. Therefore they deserve a little help. Students in the future could deal directly to the plaques. Students could create the layout of the historical information, which will be on the plaques and present it to Clark and Lindford Jewelers to have it engraved on either bronze or plastic. If those persons involved with the plaques choose to do it on bronze the student could include, as part of his/her project, collecting donations for the plaques. The students could go around to local businesses and people of the community and explain what is being done towards the development of their town in regards to the historical aspect. There are approximately thirty-five historical buildings just in that one area in Cedar City. That could involve a lot of people and result in many, many future projects to be carried out with the help of SUU students.
One could work closely with York Jones in trying to dig up more historical information and photos on the buildings and possibly create new collections and galleries to be displayed in selected business or commercial buildings. Mr. York Jones would be appreciative of any help he could get in locating and learning about any historical stories and events dealing with the downtown area. In fact he is involved with almost every historical aspect of Cedar City. If one wanted to do a history on something else in town, he would be the man to talk to. One good example would be the Old Cedar Fort. York Jones has done quite a bit of research on the fort, but there is always more to be done. In fact it has been suggested to build a monument at the sight, where the fort once stood.
Feasibility of the Project: Future projects relating to the downtown area are very feasible. There are many buildings that still need someone to do research on and contribute to the businesses in that area. I have only touched the tip of the iceberg with what can be accomplished with the right contacts and right technology-related resources. Besides the available resources, I am sure there are people in the community that have a vast amount of history in documents and papers which haven’t even been discovered yet. It seems we are always learning about and discovering the past.
The pictures that follow are of the building located on 77 north main, the present day Mountain West Books Store. The pictures are in chronological order from earliest to most recent. The first photo is of the Mercantile/Bank, before any addition was added, this photo was taken sometime around 1907. In the second picture you can see the larger building with the new addition in the back, this was probably taken shortly after it was finished in 1909. The third picture shows that the town has graduated from horse and buggy to automobiles. This picture was probably taken sometime in the 1920’s. The Forth picture shows even finer vehicles. This photo was taken in the 1930’s. The last picture is of the west side of Main St. It shows the development in downtown Cedar City. I am not sure when this picture would have been taken, probably late 40’s or early 50’s. All these photos were obtained in the special collections library at SUU. Thanks to Janet Seegmiller and York Jones.
The last two pages are articles pulled off microforms. The microform from which they were taken is Iron County Record, Cedar City Utah, Nov. 24, 1905 to Dec. 27 1912. The first of the two tells of the new addition to the Jones Block or Mercantile/Bank Building. The article gives measurements of the new addition and tells of the construction involved. The last page I added just so we could see the type of ads being sent out by two of the businesses in this building.