485 East 8800 South
Sandy, UT, USA

485 East 8800 South, Sandy, UT, USA

Statement of Significance:

Built-in 1911, the Niels and Mary Ann Fitzgerald Thompson house is both historically and architecturally significant. It is associated with an important period of development in Sandy's history. Though the owner Niels Thompson worked for a time in the mining industries of Sandy, he is best remembered for serving as a clerk of the Jordan School District for over twenty years. The home is an example of the more substantial brick homes built by 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. This house also illustrates the quality and level of craftsmanship and materials available in this area during the first quarter of the 20th century. It is one of the best remaining examples of the Victorian central-block-with-projecting-bays house type in 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 1940.5 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."7 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.10 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 1932.12 A few entrepreneurs survived by raising livestock ranging from Holstein cattle to mink. 13 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 was dry goods, the Sandy City Bank 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. 16 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.