CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING

Salt Lake City, Utah

This building was built between 1891 and 1894 to house government offices for the city and county of Salt Lake City. It was the subject of controversy from the start. The building was designed to rival the Salt Lake City Mormon Temple as the city's architectural centerpiece. During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, it was the symbol of the city’s non-Mormon citizens' defiance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The architectural firm of Monheim, Bird and Proudfoot designed the Richardsonian Romanesque building. The firm was established in 1891 specifically to design the building. They won a design competition against 14 other submissions. The Salt Lake Herald, LDS-backed paper, claimed that the competition was a "pretentious fraud." The construction cost was monstrously over budget. Estimated by the firm to be $350,000, the winning contractor bid was $377,978. But by the building's dedication on December 28, 1894, the cost was nearly $900,000. Complicating matters was the Panic of 1893 (caused by railway overbuilding), which reduced Salt Lake City and County revenues nearly by half. Although now used exclusively by Salt Lake City government, the building originally served many functions. It was Utah's Capitol from when statehood was granted in 1896 to 1915. The City and County building also housed Salt Lake's first public library and contained courtrooms.

I noticed this impressive edifice on a morning run around the city, and returned a few days later to do the sketch. I recalled from a dozen years earlier having been in the building to visit with city officials as I began work on the design of a new hotel in Salt Lake City. The ownership of the hotel company for whom I was working changed, and although the plans were complete, the hotel was never built.