The former Draper Park School now serving as City Hall has its own chapter in the town's history book.
Many residents can remember when they started there at age 6 or 7 and emerged from the grand old brick schoolhouse ready for high school. And those grownup students still sometimes bump into their teachers at the grocery store or on the street.That is part of the reason why this town of about 15,000 got all tied up in emotional knots when the City Council voted 3-2 to build a new $4 million City Hall - thus leaving the old school's future in doubt.
Many residents fear that the school - a symbol of Draper civic pride - will be left to await the day when its windows get shot out and boarded up.
"This is the last of the old public buildings," said Jean Hendricksen, 68, who attended the school in 1943 and 1944 and later taught there. "We are trying to save our historical area in Draper."
That fear drives a devoted following to appear at each City Council meeting in which this issue is discussed.
"This is a very serious issue in Draper," said Mayor Elaine Redd, a persistent supporter of full renovation.
In November, about two-thirds of Draper voters who went to the ballot box chose renovation.
Sidestepping voter sentiment, Draper council members on Dec. 17 voted 3-2 to finance a $5.5 million bond to build a new City Hall, with funds left over to partially redo the school.
"There is a genuine concern that nothing will be done" to the school, said Councilman Lyn Kimball, who supports building a new City Hall, "and that renovation will be so little that eventually we will lose the building."
On Jan. 7, the City Council is scheduled to vote on the bond resolution. If the council approves that resolution, a bond election will be held in early February. Though the Jan. 7 hearing is just a procedural step, some residents see it as another opportunity to block the new City Hall and save the old school.
Draper officials believe the school renovation is a $4 million to $8 million job - an amount the city says it cannot pay for and still build a new City Hall.
Salt Lake County Fire Department Battalion Chief Dennis Steadman has inspected the school building as closely as anybody and he believes a full renovation would be "very expensive" but would not require anything "dramatic."
"The problem with that building is that it is not seismically safe," Steadman said. "And it has to be brought into compliance . . . with fire codes."
Despite a fire last Easter weekend that badly burned the cafeteria, Steadman said the building's fire alarm system has been disconnected because of shoddy electrical wiring. The battalion chief added that a fire alarm, technically, is not required.
If the building is left to disintegrate further, the city's Arts Council, Youth Council, library, Draper Historical Society and Chamber of Commerce would lose their home.
For that reason, it is difficult to find people in Draper who favor tearing the school down and using the land for something else. However, some believe the land could be worth $4 million if it were used to expand the neighboring Draper Cemetery.
Draper Park School was built before World War I and named for John Park, a pioneer educator in Utah. Before becoming one of the founders of the University of Utah, Park taught in Draper when the city was little more than pasture.
Over the decades, the school has been expanded to include a wing for additional classrooms, a cafeteria and an auditorium. Its life as a school ended in the 1960s.
Draper resident Hulda Crossgrove, 91, was among the first class of students to step foot in the school way back in 1912.
"I was just a little girl back then," Crossgrove said. "The floors were hardwood and shiny as can be. . . . There was a great big stove in each classroom. We were told not to touch them. The janitor would come in and put the coal in."
Crossgrove said that in those days, the school didn't have indoor plumbing.
"They built some sort of a contraption out south" of the schoolyard, she said. "But not too many kids wanted to go there in wintertime, you know."
Hendricksen remembers when it was a tradition that the ninth-grade graduating class buy a piece of art for the school.
The 1951 class bought an original Norman Rockwell painting of Ichabod Crane for $800, Hendricksen said.
"Rockwell was asking for more, but when he heard that boys and girls at a junior high wanted to buy it, he lowered his price."
That painting is now housed in the elementary school.
"Draper has always had a high regard for education," said Kimball, who attended fourth, fifth and sixth grades at the school in the 1930s. "Draper, being a rural community, had two focal points - the church and the school."