People who lived in Salt Lake City 150 years ago would hardly recognize the town. So much has changed. Even the streets wide enough to turn around a team of oxen have been narrowed for sidewalks, light rail and outdoor cafe seating, and there are a lot fewer oxen.
People who lived in Salt Lake City 25 years ago, for that matter, would hardly recognize the town. So much has changed. The downtown malls are still there but with a new twist — no stores!
But through all the buildups and build-downs, through the gold rush, the coming and going and coming of light rail, through the invention of the automobile and the age of flight, even through that dark-age architectural period known as the 1970s, one structure has stood its ground.
The Beehive House.
There it sits on the corner of South Temple Street and State Street, as solid as the day it was completed 152 years ago — in 1854 — when Brigham Young, the homeowner, hired several strong workmen to hoist a huge beehive on the roof to symbolize thrift, industry and an era when people used to put huge beehives on the roof.
Nothing man-made in Utah and still in its original location is older. The Lion House next door, built two years later when Brigham Young realized he had more wives than he had house, comes closest. The Tabernacle is 13 years younger. The Salt Lake Temple is 39 years younger. The state Capitol is 62 years younger. The Delta Center is 137 years younger.
Permanent settlers had been in the Salt Lake Valley for less than five years when the Beehive House was started, less than seven when it was finished. Brigham Young built it in the colonial style of his native Vermont, bringing a bit of the civilized East to the untamed West.
Since he was governor of the territory and president of the church that settled it, the house served as both home and headquarters. Until he died, Brigham Young worked out of the Beehive House. It thus qualified as Utah's first home office and gave rise to Young's oft-uttered saying, "I'm available any hour day or night."
No one's quite sure if he meant that as a good thing or a bad thing.
Although he had many wives, Brigham Young only kept one wife at a time in the Beehive House.
The first Beehive House wife was Mary Ann Angell Young, but after a short time she moved into a house across the street and Lucy Decker Young moved in with seven children.
It was Lucy Decker Young to whom her husband, in a moment of conservative male sanity, gave the title to the Beehive House, telling her that she should never, no matter how far in debt they might get, give it back to him.
She never did. Before she died, she transferred the title to their son, John Young, who later sold the property to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The church was reportedly about to tear it down in the 1950s because it was old, but history lovers prevailed and a restoration project resulted in a museum that opened in 1961.
Nowadays, the Beehive House is decorated to look like it looked in Brigham Young's day and can be toured from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
It's not any hour day or night, but times change.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.