SLC's First Cremation

Dr. Charles Winslow’s crematorium in downtown Salt Lake City, July 1877. From UDSH. 

The first non-indigenous cremation to take place in Utah was of Dr. Charles F Winslow (1811-1877) in downtown SLC.

Dr. Winslow moved to SLC from Boston after his wife died in 1874. In SLC he was a well-respected [Gentile] professional who was interested in the sciences. Dr. Winslow had decided that cremation was more sanitary than traditional burial and was the most sustainable option for a growing population.

Dr. Winslow died July 7, 1877. He had recently written his will and specified exactly how he would like his remains treated. He directed that 48 hours after his death (to make sure he was good and dead) his heart would be removed from his body and preserved in a glass jar with a specific formula of chemicals; his heart would then be sent to Nantucket to be buried with his mother. He also directed that his body would be cremated, and his ashes buried with his wife in Boston.

Only 2 other cremations had been recorded in American history- the 1st being Henry Laurens in 1792 and the 2nd being the Baron de Palm in 1876.

Morris and Evans, experts in fire brick, were called on to build the crematorium for Dr. Winslow. They secured permission from Brigham Young and built it in their back lot, behind the Utah Theatre at the SE corner of 100 S and State St (today, this is roughly where Regent St curves between 100 S and State St).

The crematorium was built of fire brick with a stone foundation. It measured 12 ft long, 4.5 ft wide, and 5 ft high with an iron door and a window of mica. Coal was brought in from Rock Springs to ensure a high temperature was reached. A quarter of beef and several beef bones were tested in the chamber with great success.

Dr. Winslow’s children objected to the cremation, instead preferring traditional embalming and burial. The cremation was delayed several weeks until his children consented. In the meantime, Dr. Winslow’s body was decomposing, and ice offered little protection in the July heat, so he was also embalmed until the dispute was settled.

Winslow’s funeral took place on July 31 1877; kind words were spoken by his friends but no prayers were offered in accordance with his wishes directed in his will. After 2.5 hours in the furnace his body was reduced to ash and calcined bone (which was then crushed in a mortar). His heart was sent to Nantucket and his cremains sent to Boston, per his wishes.

Reportedly, some relic-hunters gathered some of the remaining refuse from the furnace, placed it in pillboxes, and sold it at a rate of $0.25 a box; several going so far as England.

The entire funeral, including the cost to construct the crematorium, was about $1500 (~$37K today)

The crematorium was dismantled soon after its use.

Sources: SL Herald 1877-07-12; SL Herald 1877-07-13; SL Herald 1877-07-31; SL Trib 1899-08-06; Winslow probate file from Utah State Archives.

Charles F Winslow, 1876. From ancestry user curiositykeeper

1884 Sanborn Map 5, red star showing location of temporary crematorium

Grave marker for the heart of Dr. Winslow in Nantucket, from find-a-grave

NIMBYism and the Women's Rescue Home

This house at 271 C Street SLC once served as a Rescue Home for Women

This house in the Avenues also served as the Women’s Rescue Home for “fallen women” (refer to previous post).

In April 1898 the Rescue Home rented this house at 271 C Street SLC. Within the next 10 months the Rescue Home had 20 applicants, 5 births, 1 death, 1 marriage, 7 women placed in suitable outside homes, and 2 children were taken to the orphanage.

Neighbors on C Street did not take kindly to the Rescue Home and a petition circulated to have the home removed and for the SLC Council stop financial support. Thomas A. Horne and his wife Mary, who lived just north at 277 C street, were the primary objectors to the Rescue Home.

In Sept 1899, the petition was formally presented to the SLC Council. Among the complaints, “the women are boisterous, they make noise a great deal of the time and they sing indecent songs. They contaminate the children.” And “There are boys and girls of all ages about here. When they see these women they very naturally learn the reason of their being in the home and it thus makes it evident to them a condition which they are altogether too young to have knowledge of.”

Not wishing to antagonize the neighbors on C Street, the Rescue Home soon signed a 3 month lease on a larger house at 54 S 1200 East (still standing) from Judge Loofbourow and announced its intent to relocate. The residents of that neighborhood soon made vigorous objections and Judge Loofbourow, without notifying the Rescue Home first, cancelled the lease not wishing to antagonize his former neighbors.

In Nov 1899 the Rescue Home found another house in Perkins Addition neighborhood (~1700 S 1000 E) and paid 4 months rent in advance. Opposition was again boisterous, led by #UofU Professor Byron Cummings (Football Coach & Archaeologist) who objects because there were children in the neighborhood. The Rescue Home was given 3 months to vacate.

Frustrated, that the “respectable communities” protested the Rescue Home, they looked for a new location in the “slums” of Commercial Street (now Regent St) but they could not find a suitable location, likely due to the high rents that the brothels and other businesses could pay.

After months of looking for a new location, the Rescue Home’s Board of Directors decided that to continue the work would be useless and the entire board resigned in Feb 1900.

A new board was established who vowed to continue the work and even secured additional locations. University of Utah Art Professor Edwin Evans lead the protest against the 1458 S 1300 East location in March 1900.

Even after the Rescue Home closed itself to prostitutes and only allowed “reformable women who had errored” the neighbors protested so vigorously that the location at 51 S 800 East was abandoned by Jan 1902.

By Jan 1902 the whole organization was turned over to the Salvation Army who operated similar homes throughout the country with much success…. except in SLC.

Sources: SL Herald 1899-01-22; SL Herald 1899-09-07; SL Trib 1899-11-25; Des News 1899-11-29; SL Herald 1900-02-08; SL Herald 1902-01-15

Abraham Mejia and SLC's First Mexican Restaurant

 Abraham Mejia ca 1900.
From Ancestry user KMejiaBeplay.

This is Abraham Mejia (1864-1927) who established Salt Lake's first Mexican restaurant (Mexican-owned serving Mexican food).

The Mejia family was one of the first Latino families to take up permanent residence in SLC.

Abraham was born in Veracruz, Mexico and in his twenties he immigrated to the U.S., first settling in Texas (where he married) and Arkansas (where he operated a tamale stand) before moving to SLC in 1903.

If you remember from one of my previous posts, Otto Branning (SLC’s Chili King) established a chili parlor in SLC in 1903. But Branning was from Indiana and was of German descent, so I don’t think he qualifies as the first Mexican restaurant in SLC.

An oral history collected by one of Abraham’s grandchildren states that Abraham Mejia and Otto Branning were initially friends, and it was Branning who suggested that Abraham and his family move to SLC. It was Abraham who taught Branning how to make chili and tamales but Branning ousted Abraham out of the business and they became competitors.

By 1904 Abraham was making a name for himself and operating a lunch stand in front of the St Elmo Hotel on Main Street. He was known for his chili-con-carne, tamales, and oyster cocktail. In 1907 he operated the Eagle Gate Café at 44 E 100 South where he “guarantees to serve nothing but genuine Mexican dishes, short orders and all kinds of sandwiches.”

Abraham worked in the restaurant business off and on throughout the remainder of his life. In addition to running restaurants, he also served as an interpreter for the SLC courts and honorary Mexican consul. He died at his home in SLC in 1927.

Sources: The History Blazer Aug 1996; Mejia family records on ancestry.com

Abraham Mejia’s restaurant in SLC, early 1900s, possibly on
Commercial Street (now Regent St). From Ancestry user KMejiaBeplay.

Advertisement for Abraham Mejia's restaurant. From 1909 SLC Directory.

Update Jan 2021: Check out this SLC History Minute about Abraham Mejia

SLC's First Black Police Officer: R. Bruce Johnson

R. Bruce Johnson.
From The Salt Lake Herald Apr 3 1904

Salt Lake City’s actual first (as far as all my research can determine) Black police officer was R. Bruce Johnson (1849-1921) rather than Paul C. Howell (see my previous post). 

R. Bruce Johnson (1849-1921) was Salt Lake City’s first Black police officer, although in reality he was of mixed ethnicity with African ancestry making up a minority of his heritage.    

Johnson self-described himself as one-eighth African heritage that he inherited from his maternal line. He was light skinned and could certainly pass for White (and maybe he did when he lived in New Orleans). However, while he lived in SLC, he primarily associated with the African American community and was well known as a member of it. 

In a 1904 newspaper article he stated that his mother was ¼ African heritage and ¾ Choctaw Native American heritage while his father’s line and his maternal grandfather’s line were both White.  He was described in the same newspaper article as “Tall and broad, with straight hair of medium hue, a strong nose and light complexion, he would never be taken as a colored leader by a person who did not know him… [but] the law of radical distinction has thrown him with the men of African extraction ever since he attained manhood.” (SL Herald Republican 1904-04-03 p 1).

Johnson was born in 1849 in Little Rock, Arkansas.  It is unclear if he was born into slavery but his father was a slave dealer in Little Rock while his mother was a person of color, as described above.  

When Johnson was a boy his father died and soon after a law passed in Arkansas mandating all free blacks (were he and his mother slaves who were freed upon the death of his father?) to move out of state, so Johnson’s mother packed up her family and moved to Indiana.

While in his 20s, Johnson moved to New Orleans where he became active in local politics, was appointed to the police force, and was a saloon owner.  He also met and married a White woman, Christine, whose family was from France. 

In 1891, Bruce Johnson arrived in SLC with a letter of recommendation from the recently murdered, and internationally famous, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessey.  Johnson immediately got himself involved with local SLC politics being closely associated with the Black Republicans.  This letter and his political connections got him out of some minor trouble with SLC police for disturbing the peace and got him placed on the Salt Lake City Police Department in the fall of 1891. 

Local newspapers initially praised Bruce Johnson for his qualifications and his work on the police force and often referred to him as a Detective, although I could not find any specific evidence that he was ever formally made that rank. (Hence why it is likely that Paul C. Howell was SLC's first Black Detective). 

By June 1892, the newly elected non-Mormon and liberal Mayor Baskin removed Johnson and others from the police force during a “cleaning house,” likely for his continued associations with saloon keeping and renting rooms to ladies of “questionable morals.”  Johnson’s defense of such associations was that he learned valuable information through his association that lead to several convictions and imprisonments.

Paul C. Howell, another person of color, replaced Johnson on the SLPD in 1892, beginning a tradition, for a time, of having one Black man on the Salt Lake Police Force.  William H. Chambers followed Howell. 

After leaving the Salt Lake police force, Johnson mostly kept to saloon keeping and politics.  More information about Bruce Johnson’s political life and his ability to “deliver the Black vote” for SLC politicians can be found at “The Boss of the White Slaves” by Jeffrey Nichols Utah Historical Quarterly V74 N4 2006 p349-364.

Another scandal in 1904 caused Bruce Johnson to finally leave SLC. Johnson shot at a White man after being called a “nigger” by him while drinking in the Red Onion Saloon on Commercial Street (now Regent St).  

The White man was lightly wounded on the scalp and Johnson offered to pay all of the man’s medical bills. To the dismay of the local conservative newspapers, Johnson got off fairly lightly with no jail time and only needing to pay a hefty fine. 

This latest controversy and the slanderous newspaper articles about him were finally too much for him and he left SLC and settled in Los Angeles, where he lived a quiet life and died in 1921 at the age of 71. 

Bruce Johnson and the Red Onion Saloon on what is now
Regent St. From Salt Lake Herald Jan 2 1904.

Bruce Johnson, officer at the 1895 Constitutional
Convention. Image from UDSH.

Update 8 Feb 2021:

Check out this SLC History Minute video about Bruce Johnson: