Dauchy Green knows the Pioneer Memorial Museum is full of artistic and historical objects worth thousands of dollars.
But for him, no other piece is more valuable than the painting of the ancestral Union Fort painted by artist Carlos Anderson.The fort, which was built in the mid-1800s near 7200 S. 1000 East in what is now Midvale, protected 273 people from the Indians. Green's great-grandfather helped build it, then commissioned the painting, which hung in the family's living room for years. It was then kept as a family heirloom.
Until Friday when that same oil painting was presented and donated to museum officials.
"My father, George Green Jr., thought it would be a good idea if a picture was painted of the fort so that our posterity would have something to look at and remember," he said.
Although Green was just a child when his father asked Anderson to paint the fort, he remembers it was a big deal for the Mormon pioneers back in the 1940s.
"It hung in our front room for a long time," Green recalls. "I was a kid then and it was there until the day he (his father) died. He didn't allow it (the painting) to leave our home."
After his parents died, the three Green children drew lots for the relic, and Forace Green was to keep it in his family until his death. Forace's wife, Dixie, gave the painting back to Dauchy recently, but he didn't enjoy it for long.
Realizing the painting has great historical value and that it would be well-protected and exhibited in a museum, Dauchy Green decided to pass it along on the condition he would be allowed to admire it every once in a while.
"I'm sure father wanted the picture to stay in the family, but I'm also sure that now he's rejoicing because something he was responsible for is important enough to the state of Utah," he said. "Personally I would like to have it hang on our wall, but we're happy it's turned out this way. Now lots of people will see an important part of history."
The painting, commissioned by George A. Green, Dauchy's great-grandfather, for the historic Utah Centennial in 1947, was presented to Edith Menna, museum director, who received it while a group of friends and relatives watched and remembered the past.
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration in Utah assigned Anderson one of its first 10 projects in 1934, Menna said.
Menna said construction on the Union Fort commenced, but enthusiasm for its completion soon lagged. In May 1854, Brigham Young stopped by the little Cottonwood settlement and chastised the pioneers for not having completed the project. But the settlers soon had the fort completed, and by July 4, 1854, most of them had moved within the safety of its walls.
People who lived within the fort farmed outside its walls. The fort area consisted of 10 acres with 18 square rods. There were 12 rectangular blocks, each divided into 24 areas.