Salt Lake
West Side Stories



A Blog Series about the History of Salt Lake's Original West Side


| by Brad Westwood | the Pioneer Park Coalition History Committee | the Dept. of Culture & Community engagement

The Utah Department of Culture & Community Engagement (CCE) presents a weekly blog series titled Salt Lake West Side Stories: A History of the Pioneer Park Neighborhood. Salt Lake West Side Stories follows the 19th century tradition of publishing articles in a serial form. The best known examples in the serial publishing tradition includes Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1851-1852), Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, 1860-1861) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes, 1887, 1891-1900).

Written by senior public historian Brad Westwood, with a lot of help from his friends, each post will cover a different topic pertaining to Salt Lake City’s original west side that spanned from West Temple to the railroad corridor and from North Temple to 6th South.  Each post offers you roughly fifteen minutes of reading, historic images, and even interactive activities.  We encourage you to read weekly or at your own pace to learn more about the history of the Pioneer Park neighborhood.

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Post 1: Introducing Salt Lake West Side Stories

Post 2: Pioneer Park's Neighborhood Boundaries

Post 3: Eight Themes Offered

Post 4: Pre-European Settlement, Crossroads, and the Idea of Home

Post 5: From Pioneer Vanguard to Pioneer Fort

Post 6: The Old Pioneer Fort's First and Second Years

Post 7: The Legacy of Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Fort

Post 8: Overland Travelers, Early Visitors, and the Coming of the Railroad

Post 9: Utah's Expanding Railroads and Salt Lake's West Side

Post 10: Salt Lake as an Early Industrial City and the Beginning of Relief Society Halls

Post 11: The Pioneer Park Neighborhood's Warehouse District and a Visit from the Liberty Bell

Post 12: Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Developments

Post 13: Transformations: Industrialization and Salt Lake City's West Side

Post 14: Salt Lake City Loses its "Dirtiest City" Status, the West Side, Public Health, and the City's Only Surviving Pioneer Square

Post 15: The Progressive Era, The Making of a Proper Park, and the "Stockades"

Post 16: Proposed Uses of the Park & Urban Review

Post 17: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Neighborhood Developments

Post 18: The Wellsprings of Modern Salt Lake City

Post 19: Brokers of Human Capital

Post 20: Benevolent and Mutual Aid Societies, Fraternal Orders, and Labor Unions on Salt Lake City's West Side

Post 21: Economic Immigrant Communities' Impact on Salt Lake City

Post 22: Irish, Cornish, Welsh and Jewish Immigrants and Salt Lake City's West Side  

Post 23: Chinese Americans on Plum Alley and on the West Side

Post 24:  African Americans and Salt Lake's West Side: Part One

Post 25: African Americans and Salt Lake's West Side: Part Two

Post 26: Immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and Salt Lake City's West Side

Post 27: Japanese American Communities on the West Side

Post 28: Latino/as and the West Side: Part One

Post 29: Latino/as and the West Side: Part Two

Post 30: The West Side's Amenities

Post 31:  Twentieth-Century Changes to the Pioneer Park Neighborhood

Post 32: Salt Lake City’s LGBTQ+ Communities and the Pioneer Park Neighborhood

Post 33: Current Challenges & Developments in the Post-Industrial Neighborhood: Part One

Post 34: Current Challenges & Developments, Continued: Part Two

Post 35: Redlining, Housing Segregation and Environmental Pollution in the Pioneer Park Neighborhood and Beyond