The Copperton Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. [‡]
Description
The Copperton Historic District contains most of the town of Copperton, a compact, isolated community located at the mouth of Bingham Canyon approximately 25 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The town was built between 1926 and about 1955 as a planned residential community for employees of Utah Copper Company. Resources in the Copperton Historic District include the high school building and stadium, one small apartment building, two duplexes, an 8.5-acre park, and 204 similarly styled houses with 63 accompanying garages. The subdivision layout of the town consists primarily of straight streets and rectangular blocks divided into roughly equal size lots. The individual resources in the Copperton Historic District as well as the town's overall layout are, for the most part, very well preserved and effectively convey the original character and significance of the town.
Boundaries of the Copperton Historic District
Boundaries for the Copperton Historic District were chosen to include the parts of town that were developed before 1941, the cutoff date for the district. Of the 247 principal buildings in the community, 207 are included within the boundaries of the Copperton Historic District. The newest sections of town, those built after 1941, are located on the fringes and are therefore easily excluded from the district. The Copperton Historic District is bounded on the south by Hillcrest Street, on the east by 5th East Street, and on the west by 2nd West Street (with the exception of three houses). The northern boundary is the most irregular with State Highway serving as the boundary at both the east and west ends of town, but in the center the boundary extends across the highway to take in all the structures between 115 East State Highway and 106-108 West State Highway, inclusive. The boundaries may be expanded at a later date to include all of the buildings constructed in Copperton during its years as a company town, up to 1956.
Excluded from the Copperton Historic District at this time were the duplexes on West State Highway, 5th East Street and in Copper Circle, all three churches, the extensively altered credit union at 117 East State Highway, the gas stations and miscellaneous commercial buildings at the east end of town, and the Lions Club building/fire station south of Copperton Park. All of these buildings are on the fringes of the community.
Contributing Resources in the Copperton Historic District
Contributing resources in the Copperton Historic District include 199 (of 207) principal buildings, 34 (of 63) frame garages, the community park and the structures included with the high school stadium. Of the 199 contributing principal buildings, 195 are single-family houses which are very similar to each other in terms of their scale and design. The important original features that have been retained on those contributing houses include their roof lines, exterior wall surfaces, and window and door openings, especially on the primary facade. Minor changes have been made to most of the houses, however. These include new porch railings, new windows and doors, small additions on the side or rear elevations, the replacement of original copper shingles and rain gutters with non-historic materials, and the installation of aluminum siding on relatively small areas, such as gable ends and soffits. Interior alterations have also been made on most of the houses to accommodate growing families and changing tastes, but they were not taken into consideration in the evaluation of the houses. One of the most common interior alterations has been the excavation of a full basement, since the houses originally came with only a partially excavated basement.
The 34 contributing garages in the Copperton Historic District are those that were built within the historic period which have undergone only minor alterations. Most of the garages are rectangular stuccoed buildings with either two or four separate bays under a simple gable roof. The two-bay garages are accessible by a single driveway and are set to the rear between the two adjacent houses they serve. Most of the four-bay garages are, in essence, two two-bay garages set back to back in the middle of the block. They serve a pair of houses on each side of the block. There are also a few multi-bay garages in the center of some blocks that are lineally arranged as opposed to back-to-back. The nineteen garages that are attached to houses were not counted as separate buildings. Common garage alterations that were considered minor included the replacement of the original hinged double doors with overhead doors and small additions on the sides or rear.
Non-contributing Resources in the Copperton Historic District
The non-contributing buildings in the Copperton Historic District include 9 (of 207) principal buildings, 29 (of 63) garages, 11 out-of-period garages, 3 buildings at the community park, and 2 buildings at the high school stadium. There are no out-of-period principal buildings in the Copperton Historic District. The 9 non-contributing buildings are all houses built within the historic period but which have been significantly altered over the years. The most common major alteration is the addition of aluminum siding to the exterior of houses. Unlike some of the contributing houses which had only minor exterior wall surfaces covered with aluminum siding, these non-contributing houses are either completely covered or are covered with the exception of only a few rows of exposed brick at the base of the walls or surrounding doorways. Other major alterations on non-contributing houses include the enclosure and drastic alteration of the front porch and the enlargement of window openings on the facade.
The 29 garages that were evaluated as non-contributing are those that have been significantly altered by large additions and/or new exterior siding. Since most of the garages contain either two or four separate bays, each individually owned, the chance for alterations was greatly increased. If one of the bays was significantly altered the entire structure was determined to be non-contributing because of the major impact of those changes on the relatively small, simple building.
House Designs and Floorplans
The houses in the Copperton Historic District convey a distinct sense of cohesiveness through their age, scale, materials, and design. They were built between 1926 and 1941 and are all one-story houses with brick or stucco exteriors. Stylistically, all of the houses in the Copperton Historic District are bungalows, period cottages or a combination of both. The bungalows are characterized by their broad front porches and exposed rafters, and they tend to more plain than the period cottages. The period cottages generally have modest designs in the English Tudor or Spanish Colonial Revival styles. The period cottage house type, popular in Utah between the two world wars, was so named because its stylistic embellishments were derived from designs of earlier historic periods. English Tudor was the most common style used on period cottages in Copperton and throughout Utah. In addition to the bungalows and period cottages there are four prefabricated copper-clad houses built between 1936 and 1938. Though slightly different in their architectural styling, those copper houses blend in well with the other houses in town.
The designs for virtually all of the Copperton houses were drawn up by Scott & Welch, a Salt Lake City-based architectural firm that is also credited with designing the layout of the town. An extensive, though not completely collection of their original drawings for Copperton provides an invaluable insight into the design process for both the houses individually and the community as a whole.[1] There is also an overall layout of the town, apparently begun by Scott & Welch, which shows each building in the community and gives the plan type for each house.[2]
Although there are over 85 stylistic variations for the Copperton houses, a single floorplan concept served as the basis for virtually all the designs. That basic floor plan is a rectangular form with its narrow end facing the street. It is divided lengthwise by a central wall with "public" rooms — living room, dining room, kitchen — on one side and "private" rooms — bedrooms and bathroom — on the other. The majority of those 85-plus variations are four- and five-room plans, which together account for over 95 percent of the houses in the town.
The four-room floor plans are the most common, probably since they were the most simple and inexpensive to build. There are 55 variations of four-room houses, and they constitute 75-80 percent of the houses in the community. They all share a standard floor plan that has a living room and kitchen on one side and a bedroom-bathroom-bedroom arrangement on the other. (The bathroom was not counted as a room.) There is a short hallway adjacent and parallel to the center dividing wall connecting the two bedrooms. The front door enters into the living room, and the rear entrance and the stairway to the basement are located at the rear of the kitchen. Built-in breakfast nooks are a prominent feature in the kitchens. The "semibasements," which had one unexcavated room in order to avoid paying higher taxes for a full basement, included a laundry room, a furnace room, a storage/fruit room and a coal room.
The numerous variations of this basic four-room plan are all the result of exterior changes, minor interior alterations, or inverted plans. Those changes do not alter the basic room arrangement, however. In some versions the living room projects slightly to the front, while in others it is flush. Most of the four-room plans have the living room and the front bedroom facing the street, but there are a few variations that rotate the plan 90 degrees to have the living room/kitchen side of the house facing the front with the porch projecting off that elevation. Exterior variations are numerous, consisting of changes in roof lines, porch treatments, windows, wall surfaces and design elements. A few of the four-room houses have attached garages, though the vast majority share a detached garage with the neighboring house.
Five-room plans differ from four-room plans primarily in that they have a dining room inserted between the living room and the kitchen. The living room is often projected slightly out the front or side in order to help accommodate that additional room. In one version the kitchen extends behind the back bedroom, and in another a third bedroom is added across the back of the house. Twenty-four of the 39 five-room houses are located on corner lots, which were traditionally favored locations. There are at least 23 five-room plans, and they account for about 20 percent of the houses in the town.
Although four- and five-room plans make up the vast majority of the Copperton Historic District houses, there are a number of miscellaneous floorplans with six, seven, or eight rooms. These were used on a very limited number of houses in the town, and some of the designs may not have been used at all, since there are no houses that have been clearly identified with them. The largest house in town is the eight-room Utah Copper Company Mine Superintendent's House at 104 East State Highway (National Register, 1985).
The four copper-clad prefabricated houses in Copperton were built as "experimental houses," and as such they are noticeably distinct. Although these houses have the same number and types of rooms found in the earlier houses, the floorplan and the exterior designs are different. The exteriors are symmetrical and simpler than those of the standard houses, and the modest stylistic features that they have are Classical instead of Period Revival or Bungalow. The horizontal copper siding on three of the four houses is very similar in appearance to aluminum siding, but early photos prove that it was original. The broadside-to-the-street orientation of these houses is reflected in their floorplans. The front and rear bedrooms are adjacent and set to one side of the house and the livingroom and kitchen to the other. The bathroom is set between the kitchen and the rear bedroom and the stairway to the basement is located between the livingroom and the kitchen. Despite their distinctiveness, these house have the same setback and scale as the other houses in town and therefore blend in very well.
Other Resources in the Copperton Historic District
In addition to single-family houses in the Copperton Historic District there are also the old Bingham High School and stadium, the teachers' apartment building, the two duplexes for teachers, and the community park, Copperton Park. The high school is an Art Moderne building designed by Scott & Welch and built in 1931. The teachers' apartment building was also built in 1931, and the duplexes were built in 1939. The stadium was constructed as a WPA project in 1937-38. The three-acre park is planted with grass and trees and has tennis courts and a playground at the south end. There are three buildings in the park, two of which — the "roundhouse" pavilion and the restrooms — are out-of-period. The maintenance shed appears to be an original building that has been extensively altered. The concrete and wrought iron entrance at the northwest corner gives the name of the park and its date of completion: Utah Copper Company Community Park, 1927.
Significance
The Copperton Historic District encompasses most of the town of Copperton, a planned residential community constructed for employees of Utah Copper Company primarily between 1926 and 1941. The Copperton Historic District is exceptionally significant in Utah as a unique combination of company town, planned community and promotional showpiece. Copperton is one of several company towns in Utah, but it transcends the standard company town image with its carefully planned layout, fully developed amenities and substantial brick and stucco houses. The attractiveness of this "model community" reflected well on Utah Copper Company, and the extensive use of copper on the houses was an overt attempt by the company to advertise the use of its product for building construction purposes. Not only is Copperton the elite of company towns in Utah, it is also the only known historic community in Utah that was architect designed. The design quality and scope of the project render it a significant work of Salt Lake City-based architects Scott & Welch, one of the leading architectural firms in Utah at that time. Though Copperton continued to be developed up through the mid-1950s, 85 percent of the community, including all of the single-family houses, was built by 1941, and it was not until 1949 that construction in the town resumed. Of the 207 principal buildings in the Copperton Historic District, 77 were built after 1936 and therefore are not yet 50 years old. Despite their age, those 77 houses are included as contributing buildings in the district because their scale, materials and styling are virtually identical with the earlier houses, and they share the same company town historical associations. Most of those houses are also located in the heart of the community, comprising an integral part of this exceptionally significant district.
In 1926 Utah Copper Company began developing Copperton, the company's worker housing project located at the mouth of Bingham Canyon near the Bingham Copper Mine. The new community was built as a residential annex to the town of Bingham, which, located within the narrow canyon, was ill-suited to handle the population growth brought on by the expansion of the mine operation during the early 1900s. Eighteen houses were built in Copperton in 1926, 30 in 1927, and so on until by 1941 a total of 204 houses had been built. The fourteen houses built in 1941 were the last "full size" houses constructed in Copperton. Thereafter the company built only duplexes, and it was not until 1949 that construction of those began. By that time the nation had gone through World War II and Utah Copper Company had been taken over by Kennecott Copper Corporation. Kennecott, an international corporation, was somewhat less thorough than Utah Copper Company had been in maintaining the houses and the town, and in 1956 it decided to get out of the housing business altogether.[3] That year all the houses in Copperton and other Kennecott towns were sold to private individuals. Kennecott continued its mining operations, however, expanding the huge open pit mine until Bingham and other small towns in the area were swallowed up. Copperton is the only remaining community located near and closely associated with the Bingham Copper Mine, a National Historic Landmark.
Utah Copper Company was the first large copper company in Utah and the most significant in terms of its impact in the industry. It was formed in 1903 as an amalgamation of a number of smaller mining operations in the Bingham area. The Bingham Copper Mine, which became the focus of the company's mining operation, has been one of the world's largest producers of copper, molybdenite and gold during the twentieth century, and it ranks first in terms of the aggregate quantity of metal produced by a single mine.[4] The open-cut method of mining was introduced and perfected at the Bingham Mine, and the mine is currently one of the largest open pit mines in the world. The past 75 years have been the primary period of the mine's production, although significant mining activity was underway in the immediate area as early as the 1860s.
Utah Copper Company chose the Copperton site for its planned housing community for several reasons: the property was already owned by the company; the parcel of land was relatively flat and large enough to accommodate the size of community needed; and the site was close to the mine, which would help minimize worker tardiness and absenteeism, especially in bad weather. Problems with the site were fairly minor, the most serious of which was probably that portions of the town were built on top of mine tailings, requiring that concrete piles, some up to 30 feet deep, be used to provide a solid footing for the houses. As many as 18 pilings were used to support some of the houses built in the northeast section of the town.[5]
Architects Carl W. Scott and George W. Welch were hired by Utah Copper Company to design the overall layout of the town and the individual houses that were to be built there. Their plan for the subdivision community included amenities such as a fully landscaped park, concrete curb, gutters, and sidewalks, shade trees, graded and graveled streets, and a ball park that was developed at the site in 1923. Scott & Welch worked up most, if not all, of the 85-plus design variations for the houses. This variety was apparently intended to avoid the repetitive and uniform streetscapes that typified most company towns. It is unclear how long Scott & Welch continued to supervise construction activities in the town, since Utah Copper Company apparently took over much of that responsibility after the initial years.[6] The builder for many of the early homes was E.J. Teague and Company, and F.B. Bowers is credited with constructing some of the later homes.[7]
Scott & Welch, the architect of the community, was one of the most prominent and prolific architectural firms in Utah during the 1920s-'40s. Partners Carl W. Scott and George W. Welch designed a great number of schools and other public buildings throughout the state during that period, many of which were federal public works projects. They also designed a significant number of commercial and institutional buildings in the Salt Lake City area. Their works include the Elk's Club Building, Masonic Hall, South High School, Bryant Junior High School, Nelson-Ricks Creamery Building,and Firestone Tire Company Building in Salt Lake City, and in other parts of the state Blanding High School, Tooele High School, Cedar City Elementary School, Morgan Elementary School, Richmond Community Building, and elementary and high school buildings in Park City. Copperton was the only project of its type undertaken by Scott & Welch, and it is a significant example of the firm's work.
The Copperton houses were well-built, attractive, and modernly furnished. They had concrete foundations, brick or stucco exteriors, copper roofing and rain gutters, central heating, indoor plumbing, garages and landscaped yards. Although the same floor plans were used repeatedly throughout the town, variations in appearance were achieved by using different exterior features and by inverting the plans. The standard house types were a four-room model, which cost $5,065 to build, and a five-room model, which cost $5,804. The most expensive house in town, the Utah Copper Company Mine Superintendent's House, cost $18,983 to construct. The four- and five-room houses were rented to company employees for $22.50 and $27.50 per month, respectively.[8]
Because of the reasonable rent and the quality of the accommodations the Copperton houses were very much in demand. Since there were many more employees than there were houses, priorities were established for allotting them. First choice was given to the head company officials; the superintendent automatically had his own house. The first eighteen houses built in 1926 were all initially occupied by mid- or upper-level management personnel.[9] Only married workers could qualify to live in the town, and those were rated according to their seniority, department, date of application, and record of taking care of company property, if they had previously lived in company housing. The mine superintendent took those factors into consideration and made the final decision on who would live in the houses. His personal feelings toward an employee would often determine whether or not that person was given a house.[10] If a worker retired or quit the company he was no longer eligible for a home in the town and had to move out. Widows, too, were not allowed to remain in their Copperton homes after the deaths of their mine-worker husbands.
Utah Copper Company was devoted to maintaining high standards in the appearance of the community. The houses were kept in good condition by regular cleaning, painting and repairs. Maintenance of each yard was the responsibility of the occupant, but the superintendent personally inspected the properties to insure that the proper standards were kept. Louis Buchman, the superintendent from 1930 to 1946, was notorious for his habit of driving slowly through the town each morning to inspect the homes and yards. Any irregularities that he spotted were sure to be brought to the attention of the occupant, and in at least one instance he was known to have dispatched a company employee to mow regularly overgrown lawns and to charge the occupants the cost of the mowing.[11]
The eight-acre park in the center of town was also kept up very nicely by the company. It was developed in 1927 and was landscaped with grass, trees, flowers and winding paths. The park also had a bandstand, rest rooms, tennis courts, and a children's playground. A greenhouse was constructed nearby in 1937 to provide flowers for the park, and there was a full-time gardener who was responsible for the park maintenance.
The showpiece quality of Copperton was intended for more than just satisfying the workers; it was a definite attempt to advertise the company and its product-copper. Building specifications for the houses called for the installation of copper shingles, copper downspouts, bronze screens, brass plumbing fittings, bronze plated hardware, and a variety of other copper products. Utah Copper Company kept careful records of the construction costs of the Copperton houses, and concluded that the initial 5-6 percent increase in costs due to the use of superior copper materials would be off set by savings in maintenance over a short period of years.[12] Most of the more visible copper elements, the shingles and rain gutters, have been replaced over the years, usually not with the same materials.
A more ambitious attempt by Utah Copper Company to promote the use of copper in the building construction industry was the erection of four prefabricated "experimental houses." The first of these model homes, located at 201 West Park Street, was built in 1936 amid a wave of publicity. During the week-long open house over 2,500 people toured the home, which was touted as Utah's first prefabricated house. The local newspaper gave the following description of the house: "Visitors were particularly impressed with the economy of the arrangement of rooms in the house and characterized it as "the biggest little house" ever planned. Another feature that will help to sell copper houses is that a house like the one on display at Copperton is everlasting. Roof, gutters, downspouts, window frames and screens, radiators and piping are all of copper and the framework of steel make the house termite proof."[13]
Copper Houses, Inc., a subsidiary of Utah Copper Company, was formed to promote and distribute the houses. Offices were established in Salt Lake City and in Washington, D.C., and by January 1937 groups of copper houses were reportedly being erected in several eastern cities.[14] Three more experimental houses, each slightly different, were built in Copperton in 1937-38. The success of this venture was apparently limited since there is little mention or physical evidence of such houses having been built elsewhere in the state.
Copperton received very favorable coverage in the local newspapers and in mining journals as a model company town. The hospitable environment of the community was viewed as a benefit to both worker and employer. It was noted that "Copperton will be a town of families — there will be no room for the floater, the pool-room habitue, or the bootlegger....Truly, one can foresee for Copperton a colony of real homes and children fitted in body and mind far better than the child living under the conditions that prevail in the ordinary mining camp."[15]
As Copperton grew and developed, schools and churches were established in the community and a number of stores were built as well. Copperton Elementary School (now demolished) was constructed along the south edge of town in 1929, and Bingham High School was built at the north side of town in 1931. The LDS church building, completed for use by 1942, was the first church constructed in the town. The Methodist Church was moved into Copperton in 1948 from its original location at Kearns Army Camp, several miles northeast of town. The third and final church erected in Copperton was the Catholic Church, constructed in 1949. Since none of the churches were built during the historic period (pre-1941) they were not included in the Copperton Historic District. Commercial buildings, too, have been excluded from the district because they have either been demolished or extensively altered. There were relatively few commercial buildings in the town anyway, because the principal business district in the area was in the town of Bingham, three miles away.
The establishment of schools in Copperton and the requirement that teachers live within the boundaries of the district in which they taught resulted in the construction of three buildings for teacher housing in the community. The first, a ten-unit two-story apartment building, was constructed on the property to the immediate west of the high school in 1931. Two sets of duplexes were built to the west of those apartments in 1939. The apartments were occupied by single teachers, but the duplexes were for the exclusive use of married teachers.[16] The teachers' apartments and duplexes were constructed by the Jordan School District with the permission of Utah Copper Company which owned the land.
Recreational activities were an important part of life in Copperton. A company ballpark was built at the site in the early 1920s even before the town was built. It continued in use until the completion of the high school ball fields and stadium in 1938. The old ball park, located in the center of town, was then replaced with the three blocks of houses between 1st East Street and 1st West Street, from State Highway to Hillcrest Street. The high school stadium, a WPA project, is still intact and is used by the Bingham Middle School which currently occupies the old high school building.
Though neither the first nor the largest company-built mining community in Utah, Copperton did own the distinction of having the most substantial and well-furnished houses of any company town in the state. It was considered the showpiece of Utah Copper Company towns with its modernly equipped, copper accoutered masonry houses. The largest of UCC's towns was Garfield, located twelve miles to the north. It eventually consisted of almost 400 houses, as well as school buildings, churches, and numerous commercial enterprises. Garfield was established in 1906 near the mine's smelter, but in 1957, in order to make way for expansion of the smelter operations, the houses were either demolished or moved from the site. There were also several company towns erected by coal companies in central Utah during the early 1900s. Included among them are Clear Creek, Columbia, Sunnyside, Kenilworth, and Hiawatha. The houses built in those towns were generally neither as large nor as well furnished as the Copperton houses, and were frame instead of masonry buildings. Hiawatha, however, is probably a more complete company town than Copperton. It has a wider variety of resources, including public, commercial, religious and mining company buildings as well as segregated residential areas for workers and management. Copperton, on the other hand, was primarily just a residential community.
Company towns and planned communities were an important development in American housing during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Planned industrial towns, such as Lowell, Massachusetts, had been in existence since the 1820s, but it was not until the turn-of-the-century that sociological and management concerns were combined with the ideas of the nascent urban planning profession to create the company town that is most familiar and pervasive in the U.S. The standard appearance of company towns is that of evenly spaced, virtually identical houses clustered in a subdivision arrangement. Uniform facades were used not only to cut construction costs, but also to convey the sense of order and efficiency valued by the large industrial employers who had the towns built. While providing employees with improved living conditions, company towns also served the employers by giving them greater control over the workers. As owner of the town, the company could dictate who could live in the houses, how the houses should be maintained, what kinds of businesses would be allowed in the town (no saloons), and, by having the workers live near the industrial site, the company could better regulate worker tardiness and absenteeism.[17]
Though Copperton still retains its original appearance, it ceased serving as a company town in 1956. That year Kennecott Copper Corporation decided to divest itself of all its residential real estate and to focus its efforts entirely on mining. A plan was worked out whereby the occupants were given first opportunity to buy their own houses for very reasonable costs. The transactions took place with very few problems.
The transition from company town to privately owned community necessitated the formation of local administrative bodies to oversee community functions such as water and sewer services, street maintenance, and upkeep of the community park. Though Copperton has never been incorporated as a town, it has functioned successfully as a community for over 30 years, despite it isolated location.
Today Copperton appears much as it did during its first few decades. None of the houses have been torn down and only a relatively few have been significantly altered. There have been no substantial additions to the size of the town since its company town days of the mid-1950s. This well-preserved, compact community conveys a distinct sense of time and place and represents important segments of Utah's architectural and social histories.
Endnotes
[1]Scott & Welch Architects Records, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections Department, University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Both color slides and black-and-white prints of those drawings are available in the National Register files at the Utah State Historical Society.
[2]A blackline print of that drawing is currently (1986) in the possession of Scott Crump, author of the book Copperton and a resident of South Jordan, Utah. Penciled in the lower right hand corner of the drawing is the date "1952," indicating the currency of the information on the drawing. Not only are the house types given on the drawing, but also the names of the occupants of the houses at that time, c.1952. Although this drawing is not labeled as the work of Scott & Welch, it is at least based on their drawings which show the development plan for some of the sections of town built around 1927-28. Photocopies of the overall drawing are available in the National Register files at the Utah State Historical Society.
[3]Scott Crump, Copperton (South Jordan, Utah: author, 19781, pp.41-42.
[4]Leonard J. Arrington and Gary B. Hansen, "The Richest Hole on Earth, A History of the Bingham Copper Mine," Monograph Series Vol. XI No. I (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1963) p.7.
[5]Crump, p.18.
[6]Although Scott & Welch were apparently not involved in the construction of Copperton houses, after the first few years (see Scott Crump, Copperton, p.181), it is evident, from a comparison of their drawings with the houses actually built, that their plans were used by the company until the last "full size" houses were built in 1941. Many of the later styles may not have been the actual work of Scott & Welch, but they were undoubtably inspired by the earlier Scott & Welch designs. Due to the unavailable records of Utah Copper Company and the incomplete condition of the Scott & Welch drawings, it is impossible to state conclusively at this time the full extent of Scott & Welch's involvement in the project during the later years.
[7]Crump, pp. 13, 28. E.J. Teague is listed in the 1927 Salt Lake City Directory as a contractor for Utah Copper Company.
[8]Crump, pp. 16-17. The rental rates for the four- and five-room houses were set on the basis of $5.00 per room and $2.50 for a garage.
[9]Crump, p.16.
[10]Interview with Rex Garrett by Michael Hunter, June 2, 1986, Copperton, Utah. Rex Garrett has lived in Copperton since 1938.
[11]Crump, pp. 31-32.
[12]William Spencer, "Copperton — A Model Home Town for Utah Copper Employees," Engineering and Mining Journal 125:9 (March 3, 1928), p.372.
[13]Bingham Bulletin, April 30, 1937, p.1.
[14]The Utah, Vol. 2 No. 11 (January 1937), p.40.
[15]Spencer, p.372.
[16]Interview with Mrs. Odell Peterson by Michael Hunter, May 29, 1986, Midvale, Utah.
[17]Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), pp.191-192.
References
Arrington, Leonard J., and Hansen, Gary B. "'The Richest Hole on Earth,' A History of the Bingham Copper Mine," Monograph Series Vol.XI No.I. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1963.
Bingham Bulletin (Bingham, Utah), 1926-41.
Crump, Scott. Copperton. South Jordan, Utah: author, 1978.
Garrett, Rex. Personal interview with Michael Hunter, June 29, 1986, Copperton, Utah. Interview notes available in the National Register File, Utah State Historical Society.
Peterson, Nell. Personal interview with Michael Hunter May 29, 1986, Midvale Utah. Interview notes available in the National Register File, Utah State Historical Society.
Scott & Welch Architects Records. Manuscripts Division, Special Collections Department, University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Spencer William. "Copperton — A Model Home Town for Utah Copper Employees," Engineering and Mining Journal 125:9 (March 3, 1928).
The Utah, 2:11 (January 1937).
Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981.
‡ Roger Roper, Historian, Utah State Historical Society, Copperton Historic District, Salt Lake County, UT, nomination document, 1986, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
1st East Street • 1st West Street • 2nd East Street • 2nd West Street • 2nd West Street • 3rd East Street • 4th East Street • 5th East Street • Cyprus Street • Hillcrest Street • Park Street East • Park Street West • Route 48 • State Highway East • State Highway West