It was called the Fort Block and Pioneer Square in the beginning — a patch of flat grass — covered ground next to a freshwater spring and a creek.
The first homeless people arrived there on or about July 24, 1847.
In one form or another, they’ve been arriving ever since.
We’re talking, of course, about Pioneer Park, downtown Salt Lake City’s only dedicated public green space. Located between 300 and 400 West and 300 and 400 South, this is the place the Salt Lake Valley’s first permanent residents settled down in after Brigham Young announced “This is the Place” 179 summers ago.
Having the two sources of water in close proximity was a practical reason the location was attractive to the 148 people in that first pioneer company, who had traded their homes in Illinois for the covered wagons they now drove onto the grass.
But the main reason they all chose to live in the same spot was to help protect each other from Native American attacks. To that end, they built a fort, with log cabins holding up the 9-foot walls of the perimeter and adobe houses making up the interior.
For the better part of 18 months, from July 1847 to February 1849, they lived like that, huddled together in close proximity, until sufficient additional immigrants had crossed the plains to join them and they felt confident enough to venture out and start setting up their city.
Brigham Young was among the first to leave, moving his family, which was not inconsiderable, half a mile to the northeast.
After that, the fort town began emptying almost as fast as it had filled. The original inhabitants, clutching the deeded lots they had been given in Great Salt Lake City, quickly moved on, many dismantling their houses and taking them with them. The structures that remained beckoned to the constant wave of newcomers looking for a temporary roof over their head as they figured things out, or to people passing through the territory, like the 49ers on their way to the California gold fields.
In the 1870s, a new stream of settlers appeared when tracks for the Utah Southern Railroad were laid down on the western boundary of the square, with a depot across the street.
Travelers exploring the vast width and breadth of the United States of America had only to step off the train to find themselves in a public open space where they could rest and recover, and maybe stay awhile.
The diversification of Utah, which up to now had been almost exclusively Latter-day Saints, began in earnest.
When Utah turned 50 in 1897, the city, in part staving off attempts by developers and speculators to purchase and monetize the property, designated Pioneer Square a municipal park.
As much as has changed in the decades since, that hasn’t. No one and everyone owns Pioneer Park.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Adding to the railroad transient population, in 1966, the I-15 freeway was completed, with an off-ramp and on-ramp just blocks from the park. Not long after that, the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall, aka Salt Lake City’s soup kitchen, opened just down the street and social service organizations began to show up to offer assistance to the growing migrant population in and around Pioneer Park.
“It has always been a refuge and a gathering place and to some degree has always had some controversy about it,” is how Nancy Montieth diplomatically puts it.
As the landscape architect for Salt Lake City public lands, Nancy is the project manager for the current $18.4 million makeover of Pioneer Park. For the past decade-plus, she’s led a team that includes civil engineers, electrical engineers, landscape architects, construction crews and historical consultants tasked with giving the historic space its latest in a long line of makeovers. (The project includes a comprehensive “cultural landscape report” that records in great detail the fascinating history of Pioneer Square, available for public view at slc.gov/historic-preservation.)
Expected to be finished by October, the primary goal is to “activate the park” — attract more people to do more things in the area on a regular basis and create a more welcoming, secure atmosphere. To that end, a new playground, restrooms, plaza, pavilion, off-leash dog area, basketball court, mist fountain, natural habitat area and park ranger kiosk (along with park rangers) are being added, along with what is expected to be the biggest draw: six new pickleball courts.
“Wherever we’ve installed pickleball, it has become such a hub of activity,” says Nancy. “People love it. And with two on two on all six courts, you can have 24 people playing at one time!”
What the pioneers of ’47 would make of pickleball, or flush toilets for that matter, is anyone’s guess. But they’d have to be pleased that the place that preserved them when they needed it most is still being preserved. In 1963, the Daughters of Utah Pioneers put up a marker in Pioneer Park, proclaiming it the “Plymouth Rock of the West.” It’s been that and a lot more through the centuries, never wavering in welcoming pilgrims and wanderers alike.