427 East 8800 South
Sandy, UT, USA

National Register of Historic Places - August M. and Mabel Jensen Nelson House

Statement of Significance:

Built-in 1909, the August M. and Mabel Jensen Nelson home is significant for its association with an important period of development in Sandy's history. The home is an example of the more substantial brick homes built by second-generation residents of Sandy during the Specialized Agriculture, Small Business, and Community Development Period (1906-1946). The house is being nominated as part of the multiple property submission, Historic Resources of Sandy City. The house is also significant architecturally as a representative of the craftsmanship of August Nelson as a local builder. Nelson built approximately forty homes in the Sandy area. The house is in good condition and contributes to the historic resources of Sandy.

HISTORY OF SANDY:
The first half of the twentieth century was a period of transition for the city of Sandy. The mining, smelting, and small farm era was being replaced by a more diversified economy. In some ways, the town still resembled the earlier predominantly agricultural community founded by Mormon settlers in the 1860s, especially as the "boom town" economy created around the mining industry waned. The population of Sandy remained around 1,500 for the four decades between 1900 and 1940. However, the city was defining itself as the political, economic, civic, and social center for a major portion of the southeast Salt Lake Valley. This period of Sandy's history laid the groundwork for the city's eventual transformation from a small town to a suburb.

The transition began with the failure of canyon mines which fed Sandy's economy. As sampling and smelting plants shifted to other locations, Sandy's impact as a mining town diminished. While the dominant force in the economy of Sandy during the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s was undoubtedly that of mining, the local agricultural community had not ceased to develop. Water sources were developed which added greatly to the establishment of the local agricultural economy which saw Sandy through the mining boom and subsequent depression."

The community was also seeing a great deal of civic development. The city of Sandy was incorporated on September 26, 1893. At the same time, thirteen city ordinances were "passed and approved."


Though most of these early ordinances defined punishable offenses, the city founders also made provisions for the naming of streets, taxation, voter registration, and animal control. By 1911 the city was managing its own water resources and had a volunteer fire brigade of twenty-five, complete with two fire trucks. Utah Power and Light began servicing Sandy in 1913, and by 1914 the city was managing a park and a cemetery.

Economically, the city was changing dramatically. The depletion of the mineral resources in the Alta area and the loss of the smelting and sampling industries had changed the economic structure of Sandy City significantly. Moreover, a series of national and local depressions beginning in 1893 and continuing to the onset of World War II had made small-scale single-crop agricultural enterprises nearly impossible.11 Sandy farmers had an especially difficult time, needing to overcome the additional challenges of water scarcity and the arid, sandy soil.
Fortunately, irrigation methods improved steadily through these years, and several Sandy farmers were able to successfully continue to raise hay and grain. A few farmers converted their fields to the raising of sugar beets. A "beet dump" was established near the railroad tracks, and Sandy beets were shipped to a West Jordan sugar factory, founded in 1916, and processed by the Utah/Idaho Sugar Company. Another successful agricultural industry was poultry. The Draper Egg Producers Association was formed in 1932. A few entrepreneurs survived by raising livestock ranging from Holstein cattle to mink. However, despite the success of these specialized agricultural industries, most farming in Sandy during the first half of the twentieth century was purely subsistence level. Between 1900-1920, the number of farms doubled, but nearly all were very small scale. Eighty-five percent of the farms were smaller than forty-nine acres. Six farms were between two hundred and one-thousand acres, and one farm was 1,217 acres.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of Sandy residents continued to live on their farms. Most managed to survive economically by combining subsistence farming with other occupations, primarily cottage industries, and mercantilism. In the 1927-1928 statewide gazetteer, the last one published exclusively for Utah, not one resident listed farmer as their occupation. The only agricultural occupations listed were poultry, dairy, and a single flour mill. The majority of occupations were highly diversified. Sandy appeared to have at least one resident involved in occupations associated with early urbanization: a physician, a dentist, a barber, a plumber, etc. The most common business listed as dry goods, the Sandy City Bank was founded in 1907, and several residents listed their civic responsibilities: city treasurer, postmaster, marshal, and justice of the peace.

Before the 1900s, transportation between Sandy and other towns in Salt Lake County had been limited to pedestrian or horse traffic on rutted, dirt roads. Several railroad lines and mining-related spurs had converged at Sandy by the 1880s, but the service they performed was primarily freight. The extension of the State Street streetcar line from Murray to Sandy on July 4, 1907 gave Sandy residents easier access to the shops and recreations of Salt Lake City. A few residents may have commuted to work in Salt Lake, but the city generally remained self-contained. Buses began to replace streetcars in the 1920s, at about the same time State Street's south end was paved for automobile traffic. The last streetcar to operate in the Salt Lake Valley was discontinued in 1946. By that time, automobiles were becoming increasingly more common, even in Sandy.

The Specialized Agriculture, Small Business, and Community Development Period in Sandy was a time of transition from farmlands and mining industries to quiet neighborhoods and small-town civic pride. The architecture of the historic square mile of Sandy, as it is called, illustrates this transition, and stands in marked contrast to later development. In the years since World War II, Sandy has plated nearly 300 subdivisions and annexed over 10,000 acres, making it one of Salt Lake's largest "bedroom" communities. Though Sandy's city center has been moved adjacent to the mall, the city's historic downtown is a distinctive reminder of Sandy's small-town past.

ARCHITECTURE:
This house is representative of a major shift in Sandy community architecture. When the Sandy mining boom ended in 1893 and local commerce turned to agricultural business, construction slowed and the quality of houses improved. The homes built at the turn of the century in Sandy were permanent, substantial structures made of brick, stone, or adobe brick with shiplap siding, and adorned with decorative woodwork of trained craftsmen. This house is expressive of the level of craftsmanship attained locally during this shift to more substantial and elaborate homes.

Victorian forms were popular in Utah from 1885-1915. The central block with projecting bays house type was an important basic form of the Victorian house. Projecting bays were added to the principal rooms to achieve the desired external irregularity of design and make the rooms larger and brighter. This house form is characterized by a roughly square central section punctuated by bays to one or several sides. The main roof is hipped or pyramidal, while the bays are usually gabled. The smaller, less expensive houses usually had an entry which led directly to the living room or parlor. The style of the house also illustrates the early twentieth century changes that were occurring in Utah. The central block with projecting bays house type with Victorian Eclectic ornamentation is important in describing the end of isolation of Utah in the late nineteenth century. The rural areas were less isolated from stylistic developments occurring on both the national and local levels. The pattern book styles and standardized building components were available and easily adapted for use with local materials. The former isolation of rural areas was no longer an obstacle to building well.

The builder of the Nelson home was August M. Nelson, a native of Sandy who is credited with building at least forty homes in the area and the Sandy Recreation Hall in the 1930s. He is listed as a contractor in the 1927-1928 Utah State Gazetteer.22 Of the many homes attributed to Nelson, there are some similarities. He appeared to favor brick, often yellow, as a primary building material. His residences are primarily one-and-one-half story residences. As a group, they represent a local builder's transition from Victorian house types to the twentieth century. He built several homes using traditional Victorian house types, such as the side passage and central block with projecting bays type, with a considerable amount of Victorian ornamentation. However, at the same time, he built homes that resemble the much simpler bungalows popular in Salt Lake City. The floor plans of these homes exhibit characteristics of both styles, sometimes as a hybrid. It appears that there was a certain amount of experimentation in Nelson's career as a local builder, nevertheless, according to his daughter, he also had a reputation for methodical quality work.