Disappearing Bed at the Critchlow Apartments

An interior view from 1909 of the Critchlow Apartments, 379 1st Ave SLC.

These images showcase a disappearing bed that can transform into a desk. The apartment boom of the early 1900s spurred the popularity of these beds, many of which were for sale in local Salt Lake City furniture shops.

Other names for a disappearing bed include Murphy bed (a specific patented brand), pull-down/fold-down bed, or hideaway bed.

Disappearing bed at the Critchlow Apartments, 1908. Image from USHS.

Disappearing bed, configured as a desk, at the Critchlow Apartments, 1908. Image from USHS.

Disappearing bed at the Critchlow Apartments, 1908. Image from USHS.

Advertisement for a disappearing bed available at Freed Furniture Store, Salt Lake City.
Image from Salt Lake Herald, June 4 1909.

Newspaper feature praising the benefits of Disappearing Beds.
Image from Salt Lake Tribune, July 12 1908.

The Critchlow was built in 1908 by John Q. Critchlow and designed by architect Charles B. Onderdonk. Built of dark red brick with white stone trim. The interior featured maple floors and colored tile baths and showers.

A building announcement promised soundproof floors with brick walls between apartments, a unique and notable feature at the time.

Both one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments were available and rented in 1908 at $30 (about $1K in 2025 dollars) and $46 (about $1.5K) a month.

The Critchlow became known by many other names through the years and is now known as First Avenue Flats.

1911 Sanborn Map showing the Critchlow Apts. Corner of 1st Ave and E Street, Salt Lake City.

The Critchlow in 1909 and 2022. Upper image from USHS, lower image from Google Street View.

Judge Building, Salt Lake City

1909 Postcard of the Judge Building, Salt Lake City.

.
The Judge Building, 8 E 300 S SLC, built in 1907 by Mary Judge and designed by the Judge family architect David C. Dart who also designed the Judge Miner's Home, now part of Judge Memorial High School.

Mary and her husband John made their wealth primarily from the Daly-Judge Mine in the Park City Mining District. John died in 1892 and Mary took over business operations and invested in real estate.

She also contributed the establishment of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, YMCA, and All Hallows College.

Judge Building in 1908. Image from USHS.

Judge Building 1939. Image from USHS

Judge Building 2023

Dr. Nell C. Brown, Hair Physician

In 1902, 30-year-old Nell Young Clauson Brown reinvented herself as “Dr. Nell C. Brown: Hair Physician.”

Advertisement from the Salt Lake Theatre program, 1903. From USHS.

Her husband, Leigh, died a couple years previous, leaving her a widow with 2 children. Leigh had been in ill health for years, and for a time, the family lived in San Francisco and then Idaho Falls before returning to SLC where Leigh died.

Nell was not a destitute or desperate widow. She was a granddaughter of Brigham Young and a daughter of well-connected Hiram B. Clawson (through his 4th wife, Emily Augusta Young). She had affluent family she could entrust the care of her children while she completed coursework in San Francisco.

Perhaps it was while the family lived in San Francisco that Nell met Dr. Edith E. McClean, or perhaps Nell responded to one of the many advertisements recruiting women to take a 3-month course in “alopecia and dermatology using the Dr. W.S. Gottheil method.”

Edith was a character herself. Also reinventing herself after a divorce, she built up a hair restoration business in San Francisco and rebranded herself as Dr. E. E. McClean offering specialized hair and scalp services and a bottled Medicated Hair Tonic of her own concoction.

Dr. Edith E. Corey McClean, of San Francisco.

Nell studied under Dr. Edith and returned to Salt Lake in May 1902 and began her own business to “scientifically treat the hair and scalp” with special attention given to baldness, promising the majority of such cases were curable under the proper treatment.

She also offered manicuring and shampooing. Like Dr. Edith, Nell rebranded herself as Dr. Nell C. Brown. Her offices were in the ornate Templeton Building at 1 S Main St (now Zions Bank Building).

Various clippings advertising Dr. Nell C. Brown

The Templeton Building where Dr. Nell C. Brown had her offices.

In Jan 1904, Nell married John Aski Silver, of the famous Silver Brothers Iron and Foundry Works, and her hair career ended.

However, two of her associates began their own business: Miss Charlotte Lynberg and Miss Carrie Leaker relocated to the Constitution Building.

Nell was widowed again in 1916 and married Morris D. Rosenbaum in 1918. When Nell died in 1937 she had amassed an enormous extended and blended family.

Horace H. Voss, Mayor of Franklin Avenue

Horacious “Horace” H. Voss (1863-1906) was one the political and civic leaders of SLC’s historically Black neighborhood of Franklin Ave, now known as Edison St. 

I refer to him as the unofficial mayor of Franklin Ave. The neighborhood had several prominent leaders who were all active in civics, newspapers, religious organizations, and politics, but Voss was unique in a couple specific aspects: he was the first person of color to serve as a Legislative Officer and owned real estate.

Horace H. Voss. I refer to him as the unofficial mayor of Franklin Ave, Salt Lake City.

Originally from Tennessee, Voss spent a few years in Kansas City, Missouri, before arriving in SLC in 1891.

He quickly became involved with Salt Lake’s small, but active, Black community. He was one of the vocal leaders of the Black Republicans, helped organize the annual Emancipation Day celebrations, was a trustee of Salt Lake's Trinity African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and was a member of several Black fraternal lodges. 

Notably, Voss was the first person of color to serve as a Legislative Officer in Utah. In 1903 he was appointed to serve as Doorkeeper, a position granted to him by the Utah Republican Party for “delivering the Black Vote.”  This type of appointment was something that the Black community fought for, especially since the position commonly offered was that of dog catcher, a thankless and difficult City position.

Although Edison Street recorded 100% Black residents in the early 1900s, Voss, and his wife Lizzie, were the only Black people to own property in this neighborhood. He owned houses at 254 and 254 ½ S. Edison Street. (Of note there were other Black property owners in Millcreek and on the outskirts of SLC).

Voss was killed on Edison Street in 1906.  A day after stopping an attack on an elderly man, the assailant lured Voss into a boarding house and shot him in an act of revenge for interfering the day prior. His murder was national news with many newspapers tracking each development of the trial of his killer.

His funeral was held at the First Methodist Church on the corner of 200 East and 200 South as it was larger than the AME Church. Both Black and White people attended his funeral, the 24th Infantry Band from Fort Douglas played, and it featured choir performances and speeches. Horace Voss’s mother arrived at the funeral from Tennessee as it was underway. He is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Salt Lake's Franklin Avenue as a Historic Black Neighborhood

General location of Franklin Avenue, between 200-300 South and State St-200 East

Between about 1885 and the 1920s, Franklin Ave (now Edison St) became home to a large population of Black Americans.

This mid-block alley situated within the original 13th Ward, started out like other blocks of the original SLC plat- residential and agricultural lands divided among early Mormon settlers of the 1840s-1850s.

After the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 (through Ogden) and the first railroad spur to SLC in 1870, new arrivals became more common. Coupled with the great western migration of Black Americans after the Civil War, Salt Lake (and Ogden) became a place for people to find work relating to the railroad and hospitality, often the only type of jobs that Black people were allowed to obtain, such as porters, waiters, cooks, maids, laborers, etc. As such, both Salt Lake and Ogden saw population increase of Black Americans and other groups.

A view of Salt Lake City in the 1870s. Although Franklin Ave is located outside the image, it gives a good idea of what the area looked like at this time.

 
Also, by 1870, those early log cabins and small adobe homes on large parcels belonging to the original Mormon settlers had largely fallen into disrepair and had been subdivided; sometimes sold for redevelopment and sometimes rented out to the new SLC arrivals, generally those economically disadvantaged newcomers who could afford these low-cost rentals. On Franklin Avenue, these tended to be Scandinavian speaking converts to the LDS church (through the 1870s-1880s) and eventually to Black Americans.

Franklin Ave had a reputation for being a tough neighborhood in the 1870s. At the time a large Scandinavian population lived on the street. As was common with mid-block alleys, a number of raucous characters were present. Newspapers noted that two families often indulged “in the unlawful practice of calling each other bad names, in the Scandinavian language.”

Brothels started up on Franklin Ave at this time as well. Mid-block alleys and the hidden center of city blocks were out of sight from the more respectable business along the main streets and thus became the preferred location of many vices. At this time the brothels on Franklin Ave seem to have only been run by White people, mostly women. By 1878 the Deseret News identified Franklin Ave as a “Bad Place” with “loose characters.”

The 1880s brought some Black people to the neighborhood. The first Black residents of Franklin Ave that I could find were Alice and Benjamin Nesbitt who resided there in 1884. Alice later became president of the Colored women’s Republican Club and worked to secure voting rights for Black women in Utah. The rooms and houses available for rent were owned primarily by White people; the most prominent owner being John Johnson who supplied rented housing and jobs to people on Franklin Ave.

Notably, many of the buildings were lacking in maintenance and sanitary conditions were atrocious. A sewer line was installed in 1888 but many of the older homes were never connected, and outhouses remained common. The street remained unpaved through this time, which is an important consideration of the sanitary conditions when coupled with lack of standardized garbage disposal, accumulation of animal waste, and the prevalence of coal burning stoves.

Franklin Ave in 1905. One of the earlier images showing the majority residential buildings.

By the time the first Black residents moved into Franklin Ave in the mid-1880s, the street was already a difficult neighborhood. Rents were probably cheap, but brothels and gambling dens were common.

Sanitary conditions were notably inadequate. The Salt Lake Herald complained for several years of the perpetual cesspool that existed on the southern end of Franklin Ave at 300 South; their 1888 article described it as a “slimy, green, stagnant pool [that] emits a very nauseating effluvia these warm days and is bound to make somebody sick…”

The 1890s saw a dramatic shift from White to Black residents, likely drawn by cheap rent. Some of this influx was due to the arrival of the 24th Infantry (Buffalo Soldiers) at Fort Douglas in 1896 with some of the Soldiers families living on Franklin Ave and some Soldiers choosing to stay in SLC after they were discharged from the Army.

The 1900 census shows all but one of the buildings on Franklin Ave were home to Black families, including Ella Phelps who, along with her husband James and son James Roscoe, ran a rooming house for other Black individuals at 249 Franklin Ave (now a parking lot). Notably the Phelps did not own their building.

The exception to Black residents was the Salvation Army’s Workingmen’s Hotel (which is now the Franklin Ave Theater building at 231 Edison- more on that later) which was occupied only by White men.

The Black population of SLC continued to increase, especially in and around Franklin Ave. Throughout the 1890s and early 1900s the Salt Lake Herald-Republican newspaper referred to the street as “Darktown.”

Many of the SLC Black organizations that exist today can trace their beginnings to the residents of Franklin Ave. Both Calvary Baptist Church and Trinity African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church began on Franklin Ave with the initial fundraising efforts and early church meetings.

In 1906, SLC changed the name of Franklin Ave to Edison St, largely to “rebrand” the street from Black residential to White commercial. The first White-owned business, Skelton Printing, moved into the Franklin Ave Theater building in 1906.

Throughout the next decade more business displaced the residents. The 1911 Sanborn Map indicates about half of the buildings on Franklin Ave/Edison St were residential, mostly on the southern half of the street. By 1926, the Sanborn Map shows no residential buildings.

Many of the displaced residents moved to the south end of the Central City neighborhood, mostly 400 South-900 South and Main St-500 East.

Edison Street (formerly Franklin Ave) in 1936, showing majority commercial buildings.

A note on Salt Lake's Black population:

In 1900, 278 Black people were recorded as living in SLC and in 1910 this increased to 737, most of whom (but not all) lived on or around Franklin Ave. The overall Black population in SLC was small during this time, only about 1% of SLC (even accounting for undercounting of the census).

• 1900: 278 black / 77,725 total SLC population = 0.4%
• 1910 737 black / 131,462 total SLC population = 0.6%

For comparison, the 2020 census records Utah's Black population as 2%

Sanborn Maps showing the transition of Franklin Ave to Edison Street, 1926-1950

Blue Houses = Residential Buildings

Red Shopping Cart = Commercial Buildings

.

Franklin Avenue's Name Changed to Edison Street in 1906

In 1906, Franklin Avenue’s name was changed to Edison Street. It was a deliberate attempt by SLC government officials and property owners to change the racial make up of the street: from a residential area occupied nearly entirely by Black American families to a commercial district owned and operated by White businesses.

A 1906 newspaper article detailing the excitement of pushing out Black residents of Franklin Ave.

It was a deliberate decision to push an "undesirable" population out of the downtown area of Salt Lake City. Many of whom eventually relocated to the southern half of the Central City neighborhood, primarily south of 400 South and west of 500 East.

The name change was petitioned by property owners of Franklin Ave, who were primarily White individuals and descendants of the original Mormon/LDS Pioneers who settled this block.

The Black residents of the street were primarily renters (although one notable exception- Mr. H.H. Voss, more on him later) and had little say in the future of the neighborhood.

A direct newspaper article title: [The street] Changes Name and Color

 
The first business to move to Edison St was Skelton Printing, who purchased the old Franklin Avenue Theater building (more about that building later) and ghost sign remnants of the printing operation can still be seen on the building.

Additional White owned businesses moved in soon thereafter. Once a budding commercial district was established, Salt Lake City decided to invest in better utilities and beautification efforts. For example, Edison Street was paved in 1909 with cement and sidewalks were installed.

A 1910 photograph of one of the new businesses- Voyles Meat Market at 152 E 200 South.

 
The paving helped resolve sanitary issues of the often muddy street with poor drainage and the high number of older homes that had never been connected to the sewer line (outhouses were abundant).

With the understanding that 1906 marks a significant year in the history of this street, My next several posts will discuss the pre-1906 history (Franklin Avenue) and the post-1906 history (Edison Street): Important events. Significant buildings. Interesting history. So much history to highlight!

NOTE – there is a rumor going around that Edison Street was so named because it was the first street with electric lights in SLC. *This is false.* Main Street was the first electrified street in SLC as it was the showcase business street.

Demolition of the historic Phillips Congregational Church near Trolley Square

Demotion Pending! 

The historic Phillips Congregational Church near Trolley Square, 479 S 700 East Salt Lake City has a demolition permit filed with Salt Lake City. (The address is also identified as 495 S 700 East due to recent parcel consolidation) .

Owner Robot Butcher Shop LLC (Las Vegas, NV) plans to start demolition at the end of January, per their submitted permit to Salt Lake City.

Robot Butcher LLC is associated with Beer Zombies (Las Vegas), HallPass SLC, and Overland West. A source indicates that Beer Zombies and HallPass are no longer associated with Robot Butcher and it is Overland West, Inc has decided to proceed with the demolition permit. Erik Petersen of Overland West, headquarters in Ogden, was the company's signature for the parcel consolidation application.

This historic church was built in 1907. The church is not a local historic landmark site so there are no legal protections against demolition. It is up to the property owner to decide to demolish it or to keep it.

Building Salt Lake request comment from Erik Petersen who did not return their inquiries; however, their listing agent, Chad Ariss of AIM Real Estate Group did and told Building Salt Lake:

“RBS [Robot Butcher Shop] is exploring all options and entertaining the possibility of a sale prior to demolition for redevelopment or a lease opportunity.”

While that might encourage preservationists, Ariss added, “RBS believes the potential gross income from a ground lease is better than the lease rate with the structures in “as-is” condition and/or also in an updated condition with the necessary improvements done so the buildings are safe and desirable to prospective tenants.”

What about adaptive reuse? Ariss noted that “RBS was engaging in preliminary plans with a brewing company to turn the church building into a brewery, but parking restrictions made that unfeasible for the tenant.”

The Congregational Church is interesting because they delivered the first "Gentile Christian" sermon in SLC on Jan 22 1865 (nearly 160 years ago exactly!)

Of note, the pastor's house is now X-Wife's Place. X-Wife's Place is a separate parcel and is not proposed for demolition.

Some additional photos of the Phillips Congregational Church on 700 East 500 South, Salt Lake City. The property is up for sale (last photo) while the application for the demo permit is being processed by the City.

An Antique Electro-Static Machine

An example of an Electro Static Machine. Insert in lower right corner is the Karrick Building.

An antique electro-static machine was found on the 2nd floor of the Karrick Block at 236 S Main SLC during its renovation in 2000.

The device was made by the Frank S. Betz Co., a well-known supplier of a variety of medical supplies and equipment.  These electro-static devices were in use from about the 1880s through the 1930s.

The Electro Static Machine found in the Karrick Building

When this particular machine was found by MHTN Architects, they contacted The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (www.museumofquackery.com) in Minneapolis and David G. Rickert identified the machine as a Holtz, of which there were many varieties and were popular between 1890-1910.

Within the wood cabinet were large circular copper plates that would revolve and create static electricity.  According to historic advertisements and instructions, this electricity could be used to cure a multitude of ailments.

An example of an advertisement for a Holtz type machine.

Excerpt from medial book indicating how to use the machine

Prior to 1905, when Lewis Karrick died, the main occupant of the Karrick building was Roberts and Nelden Drugs, a large wholesale and retail pharmacy.  

Lewis Karrick operated a gambling and billiards hall on the second floor and a brothel with 8 rooms on the third.  A description from the late 1970s notes that the names of several women still remained on the doors (I did not find any further information about these names).

In 1908 the building was acquired by Mary Judge (of the Judge Building) and the ground floor leased to longtime occupant Leyson-Pearsall Jewelers.

It is unclear who owned this abandoned electro-static machine. The upper floors of the Karrick Block were leased to many people, including some doctors and dentists. 

Comments on my Instagram post indicate this machine is within the collections of the Utah Historical Society. 

Sources:

• Deseret News 2000-04-04
• USHS file Karrack Building
• Manual of Static Electricity in X-Ray and Therapeutic Uses by S.H. Monell M.D., 1900