Memorial House -- Water Department’s Early Home

City Creek horse stable was water department headquarters

December 5, 2004

Top (Slide 1): Water Department Shops with City Creek in the forefront. Bottom (Slide 2): Memorial House as viewed today.
City Creek was Salt Lake City’s first water supply to be piped into a municipal water system.  The first pipe was installed in 1876 to serve the downtown commercial area. For some time the area that is now Memory Grove was the headquarters for the Water Department.  The Water Department shop  was situated on the west side of City Creek at the current site of the Memorial House. Located near the shop was the intake structure to take the water out of the creek into the pipe system. Slide1 shows the old shop with cast iron pipe, fittings, horse and buggies and early motorized vehicles in the forefront. Slide 2 shows Memorial House photographed in 2004.   

In 1914 Waterworks Superintendent Chas. F. Barrett recommended moving from the City Creek site. “Shop stables and quarters now used by the Waterworks Department in City Creek Canyon are inadequate for the accommodation of the constantly growing department. [The Department] ...will demand additional room for shops, for meter repair, for hydrant repairs, valve repairs and the many other repairs which are constantly necessary on the waterworks system.” He complained about the ineffeciency of using the City Creek Canyon site. “[The shops] are also too far out of the way to be economical; much time is lost by the workman going to and from work; also it is very expensive to haul heavy materials from the depots to the shops and then re-haul the material, when needed, from the shops to the location of work.”

Sometime between Waterworks Superintendent Barrett’s recommendation and 1924 the Waterworks Department moved from the City Creek Canyon headquarters to a new location between 600 and 700 South on Jefferson Street. According to the Utah State Historical Society records the Waterworks Department’s City Creek Canyon shops was converted to the Memorial House in 1924.

The first plan for a park was made in 1902 and in 1914 monies were allotted for the City Creek Canyon Park.  In 1920 the Salt Lake Chapter of the Service Star Legion requested the City Commission to set a side part of the park for a memorial to the veterans of World War I. The Memorial has evolved to what we see today.

In 1970 the Water Department left the Edison Street site and located at its current site at 1530 Jefferson Street. Subsequently, in 1973 the administration, engineering, billing and customer service functions were relocated from the City & County Building to the Office Building located at 1530 South West Temple.  Only the elected commissioner remained at city hall.

Much has changed since the early 1900s when the Water Department operated out of the City Creek site. Today the City’s water, sewer and stormwater employees operate out of the sites located on West Temple and Jefferson streets.

For more information about Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities: slcclassic.com/utilities