Native Place Atlas- some Native names of Salt Lake County

The Native Place Atlas is a project from the American West Center at the University of Utah.

Overview of the Native Place Atlas

From their website:

Place names in the United States are officially kept by the US Board on Geographic Names, which was first created in 1890 to address conflicting names and spellings that faced mapmakers in the American West.

The place names that appeared on the first maps of the West derived from Euro-American explorers, surveyors, and settlers. Native presence became “under-mapped” as the cartographic tools of settler-colonialism reconstructed the imagined landscape through place naming.

Out of respect for tribal knowledge and to safeguard against non-Native trespass, the map will not name or show the location of sacred sites.

Unlike drawings of territorial tribal boundaries, which are static and limiting due to the changing nature of these lines throughout history, Native Places allows viewers to see the spread of Native homelands through their linguistic presence.

The data currently contains nearly 600 place names.

https://nativeplacesatlas.org/

Map showing Native Placenames for Salt Lake County vv

Excerpt of Salt Lake County Native Placenames

Salt Lakers Reaction to the Atomic Bombs and V-J Day 1945

Today and Sunday, August 6 and 9 are the anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

University of Utah Physics professor
Dr. Thomas J. Parmley, Des News 1945-08-07

The reaction of Salt Lakers to this news followed 3 broad sequences as the understanding of the situation unfolded over the next couple weeks. People asked themselves: 1) What is this new technology?; 2) What does it mean for the war?; 3) What does it mean for me?

The first announcement of the bombing was made by President Truman on Aug 6, 16 hours after the bombing of Hiroshima. He specifically identified Hiroshima as “an important Japanese Army base” and he explained the technology staying “It is the atomic bomb. It is harnessing the basic power of the universe.”

  
The next day, Aug 7, the local newspapers scrambled to explain atomic energy. The Deseret News interviewed #UofU Physics Professor Dr. Thomas J. Parmley (Image 1) but also sought to balance the science with comments from David O. McKay of the LDS Church who said “Let us hope that the discovery of the atomic bomb will result in the ending of all wars, so that nations and people of this world may not be exterminated.”

 

Illustration of atomic theory, SL Trib Aug 7 1945

By Aug 8 very little seemed to have changed for Americans in the War. The USSR had declared war on Japan but it seemed that the war was going to continue.

Aug 9, news came that a second and larger atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki. People were uncertain what this meant for the war. As with Hiroshima, very few details were released to the American public about the bombs, the destruction, and the impact on the Japanese people.

Aug 10, President Truman called on Japan to surrender or be destroyed by atomic bombing saying “We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”

Although talks of surrender were underway, there was still uncertainty around the war.

It wasn’t until Tues Aug 14 when a Tokyo radio station broadcast Emperor Hirohito’s surrender and headlines ran in the US newspapers with the announcement that Japan Surrenders! (On Aug 15 a ceasefire was formally implemented.)

SL Tribune headline. From SL Trib 1945-08-14

With the headline of “Japan Surrenders!” on the Aug 14, 1945, Salt Lake Tribune, spontaneous celebrations started all along Main Street with Salt Lakers celebrating Victory over Japan (V-J) Day. The official V-J Day would not be declared until Aug 15 but people were just too excited not to celebrate immediately.

Streamers were thrown out of office windows, cars packed downtown with their horns blaring, Strong’s military band played music, and people danced in the street.

On Aug 15, President Truman announced a 2-day national holiday for V-J Day. Celebrations continued but people were also encouraged to attend church services. Most businesses closed for the holiday- including State Liquor stores so as not to encourage rowdiness. 

 V-J Day Celebration in SLC, note Tribune headline.
From UDSH.

Crowds on Main Street, V-J Day Celebration.
From UDSH. 

Crowds on Main Street, V-J Day Celebration.
From UDSH. 

Crowds on Main Street, V-J Day Celebration.
From UDSH. 

 Aug 15 also saw the beginning of the end of wartime rationing. Gasoline and canned fruits/veggies were immediately available without ration cards. In response, Salt Lakers swarmed the local gas stations and people started taking pleasure rides up through the canyons again.

Gasoline rations end. From SL Trib 1945-08-16

Motorists ride through Parleys Canyon, From SL Trib 1945-08-17

Rationing ends on canned fruits From SL Trib 1945-08-16

Once the celebrations subsided people began wondering what the end of the war meant for them personally. A Q&A was printed in the newspapers with Washington DC’s answers to common questions such as when will troops return, when will rationing end, will rent control continue, how will war surplus be distributed, will returning troops get their jobs back, etc. 

The last street car line, From Des News 1945-08-18

Locally, people wondered about their wartime jobs and what would happen with large employers such as Geneva Steel. Northern Utah had experienced an economic boom during WWII with the building of military installations, hospitals, and industrial plants and people wondered without the war dollars would the local economy fall back into a depression.

 One thing was certain, with the war over things were about the change. One of the first anticipated changes of SLC was the elimination of the City’s electric street cars in favor of personal automobiles.

Without the rationing of rubber, gasoline, and metals people could return to using their personal automobiles. Some people specifically commented that they were looking forward to not needing to walk or rely on public transportation anymore.

Suicide Rock in Parley's Canyon

Portion of a postcard showing the waterworks
in Parleys Canyon, ca 1920.  From UDSH.

I’ve been attempting to find the origin of the name for Suicide Rock, the real reason… not the folklore tale. I have only been somewhat successful.

First, there is no official name for Suicide Rock in the US Board on Geographic Names. Officially it is unnamed but official SLC documents do refer to it as Suicide Rock.

The legend of its naming has been immortalized on a plaque near the site, it reads: “For hundreds of years, it stood as a watch tower for the Indians until, as the story goes, an Indian maiden upon learning of the death of her brave, leaped from the top to her death on the rocks below, giving it the name of Suicide Rock.”

In my research, I found this legend dates to the 1920s when it was often printed in newspapers and magazines. There are variations: sometimes it is unrequited love; sometimes her lover is dead; sometimes he returns to find her dead; and sometimes both plunge to their deaths.

However, the name “Suicide Rock” seems to predate this legend by several decades.
The earliest Euro-American explorers of Parleys Canyon did not seem to feel Suicide Rock was important enough to make note of. The writings of early LDS pioneers, including Parley P. Pratt, did not mention it. Captain Howard Stansbury did not identify it on his 1852 map nor anyone in his party mention it in their journals.

The earliest mentions that I could find were in the 1880s and it was called a variety of names including “the red dugway” “the Narrows” “Sentinel Peak” and “the Gateway.”
In the 1890s the feature was known as both “Suicide Rock” and “Sentinel Rock” and by then was the location of a reservoir.

By the 1920s the name “Suicide Rock” became the preferred name and the legend of the Native American maiden had solidified.

Although there were automobile accidents at Suicide Rock in the 1930s-1950s I did not find any mention of a recorded suicide at the geologic feature. In 1880 there was an attempted suicide at the Philadelphia Brewery (aka, Dudlers Inn) in Parley’s Hollow but the individual survived and it was not at the Rock itself.

So, I am at a loss of how Suicide Rock got its name. Anyone know of some pre-1890 sources that mention this geologic feature?

Sources:
Too many to name here but Florence Youngberg’s book on Parley’s Hollow was the most complete and accurate compilation of information that I came across. Highly recommended.

Illustration printed in SL Herald Dec 2 1889, with the name “The Gateway”

Modern view of Suicide Rock from 2009, from UDSH.

Pics or it Didn't Happen, from 1925

Little Louise Schricker and her fishing cat "Mamma".  (The family name is Schricker and the newspaper misprinted their name.) From SL Trib 1925-05-05

Pics or it didn’t happen from 96 years ago!

In 1925, 4-year-old Louise Schricker lived with her parents at the Parleys Reservoir caretaker house at the base of Suicide Rock where her father, Louis Schricker, was a tankman and managed the water works for SLC.

The Schrickers adopted a pregnant cat named “Mamma” who they also called “the trout hound.”

Mamma, the cat, disliked the food that the Schrickers put out for her, instead she preferred to do her own hunting in Parley’s Creek for trout!

Mamma would stalk the trout on the bank of a side channel of Parley’s Creek and when she saw a flicker in the water, up to a dozen feet away, she would plunge into the icy water.

One afternoon she came out of the stream with a foot-long trout between her jaws. Another time she caught a 10-inch rainbow trout.

After she caught her fish, she would then feast on her dinner, bask in the sun until her fur dried, and then creep back to her kittens in the cellar.

And the Salt Lake Tribune printed the picture of Mamma to prove it.

Source: Salt Lake Trib 1925-05-05

These Row House Apartments at 620 S Park St Housed Jewish Refugees after WWII

Historic Row Houses apartment building at 620 S Park Street SLC

This row house apartment complex located at 620 S Park Street was built in 1890 for Dr. Patrick J. McKenna and designed by Thompson & Weigel.

Dr. McKenna was an Irish allopath who, in 1890, had just moved to SLC from New Orleans and could not find any suitable (new, nice, and large) rental housing, so he and his wife built their own which they named Bellevue Terrace. Originally the complex consisted of 6 apartments of 7-rooms each.

In 1901, Dr. McKenna died in a freak accident in which he fell from a train in Parley’s Canyon during an Elks Club excursion to Park City. A few years later his widow married Dr. McKenna’s cousin and moved to Ireland, selling Bellevue Terrace.

Bellevue Terrace changed ownership and the name Bellevue was dropped around the time the street was renamed Park Street The complex was also remodeled into 22 studio apartments during the Great Depression.

Mary and Ben Davis purchased the apartment complex in 1946 and renamed it the Davis Apartments. Both Mary and Ben were Jewish immigrants from Europe (Mary from Lithuania and Ben from Austria) and they arranged through the United Jewish Appeal to rent the apartments to refugees from WWII concentration camps.

Their daughter, Helen Barr, took over ownership of the complex in 1984 and she received $224K from the SLC Redevelopment Agency (RDA) to rehab and remodel the building. The building was remodeled into a 12-unit apartment and renamed Mary’s Manor in honor of Ms. Barr’s mother.

Ms. Barr is still the owner of the apartment complex.