Welcome to Spring City

One of my friends called me up and wanted to go somewhere this weekend and as a result I looked on http://www.utah.com/ under events and found out that there were several events taking place in central Utah. Spring City was having Heritage Day on the 24th. In Ephraim that same day there was the Scandinavian Festival. And let's not leave out the Heaven on Earth Festival at the Wind Walker Ranch. For those of you who don't know Spring City and Ephraim are 10 minutes away from each other so we planned on going to both. Seeing as the Heaven on Earth Festival was a hippie gathering we opted to skip out on that one this year. But you can check out the details at http://www.heavenonearthfestival.com/.

I'm not going to make this too wordy...but I do want to say that I have always LOVED Spring City. It's a historic pioneer town that is on the national register as a historic landmark. The whole town is pretty much as it was in the pioneer days, it's like stepping back in time when you go there. I used to drive through it when I lived in Ephraim, it was out of the way but the town was so beautiful I would make the detour. So the Heritage Day is the one day a year that the community opens their door and allows the public to tour their homes. If you know me well you know that I LOVE old homes and so this opportunity was super exciting for me.

This is the Allred Hotel built in 1867.




















The people that owned this place had just bought it recently and were in the process of restoring it. It beautiful building with a lot of ole antiques, a really cool old kitchen, lots of little rooms upstairs with a wash stand in the hall. Most of the homes in Spring City are made with oolitic limestone. The outdoor lighting fixture on the porch was awesome, it's an oil lamp.

There were 6 bed rooms on the 2nd level. This is the bathroom up stairs. Every house we saw had claw foot tubs. This one was made of metal trimmed with wood.

The LDS Church 1902.

Built out of limestone, this church was beautiful. Leslie made the comment that would move here just to go to church. The chapel inside had tons of hand carved wood and a really cool organ. The side addition was add in 1970 made with the same material and windows.

Neils H. Borresen House 1864
Most the settlers in this region were immigrants from Scandinavia. Thus the architecture reflected those styles. This is a Danish style house with three doors. We were told that it had a second story door so that they could lift furniture to the top level.

A polygamist family lived here. There were three wives total. The first wife however lived in Fairview, 15 miles to the north. (I guess she didn't get along with the other wives) There were pictures inside of the families, including a picture of the father in prison in Salt Lake City, along with a framed letter that he had written to his family. He went to prison three times for Polygamy.

Endowment/School house 1876.

This house is thought to be an old "endowment" building that the saints used before the Manti temple was completed. It is also believed to have been an office for Apostle Orson Hyde. Later it was used as a school house for 20 years. There is a family living here now in this 2 room house. The top floor is where they sleep(shown below), and the bottom floor has a kitchen area(shown) in the front a dinning table in the middle and a living room area in the back. They had just installed a bathroom this year in a small closet under the stairs which included electricity and running water a first for them as the structure has remained without it since it's completion. They did this because apparently their outhouse had been stolen.

This kitchen is not a setup, this is how they do it, wash tubs and all.


















I loved the door knobs in this house.











Granary/Cabin 1865








Originally a granary, it was purchased by artist Susan Gallacher who moved it and turned into a cabin. It had one large room with a loft and wood burning stove, and two very small rooms to the back side. A bathroom and a kitchen. It was one of my favorite structures because it was tiny and so co cute! Note the art work in on the walls. Every single house that we toured had original art work in it. This is a huge artist community, many artist live in town and there were 4 art museums in town.





Judge Jacob Johnsons House 1892.

Judge Jacobs house is easily the biggest and most expensive house in town. He must have been very well off. It included the Victorian style house, a guest house, a granary and huge stone barn.


There were lots of things to love about this house. It was beautifully restored, antique furniture, stained glass windows. 5 huge bedrooms each with a balcony etc. The grounds were very beautiful and well kept. It reminded me of the house in Pollyanna.























I loved the light fixtures in this house. Notice the art, all original, and this was my favorite bathroom!
























There you have it, were toured lots of home, those were just some of my favorites. There were 22 homes on display this year. We were told that half the town does it one year and the other half does it next year. So we'll have to go back next year I suppose.

We did make it to the Scandinavian Festival as well, which was fun. Fun to see Ephriam more than anything. We accidentally happened upon the "Heaven on Earth Festival" while driving around, don't worry we just drove by. We also drove to Manti to see the Temple. All in all it was a really fun day!