Salt Lake City Loses Its “Dirtiest City” Status, the West Side, Public Health, and the City’s Only Surviving Pioneer Square

Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Fourteenby Brad Westwood It is no surprise that in terms of public health, sanitary reform, and civic improvements, local and state leaders neglected Salt Lake City’s ethnically diverse and industrial west side. The west side sits along the floodplain of the Jordan River and the southern end of City Creek’s alluvial deposit. At the …

The Progressive Era, the Making of a Proper Park, and the “Stockades”

Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Fifteenby Brad Westwood and Cassandra Clark The Progressive Era spanned from 1890 to roughly 1920 and was a time of reform and social activism. Progressives were mainly white, Protestant, and members of a growing “new” middle class, who earned their wealth as a result of America’s rapid post-Civil War industrialization. By the end of the …

Continued Transformations: Industrialization and Salt Lake City’s West Side

Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Thirteenby Brad Westwood Salt Lake’s west side underwent massive and constant changes during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.  What began as a fort where Mormon pioneers sought shelter, transformed into a transportation, industrial and manufacturing hub, and by the late nineteenth century experienced dramatic social and environmental consequences as a result. For …

Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Pioneer Park Neighborhood Developments

Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Seventeenby Brad Westwood In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Federal-Aid Highway Act. This Act allowed for the construction of an interstate highway system with the main purpose of defending the nation from foreign attack. In Utah, representatives from the state legislature called upon eminent domain – the condemning and purchasing …