It didn't look like much. Just a wooden crate, stacked full of dirty, red-brown bricks.

Yup, bricks.

But as early as 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, a handful of folks were at the ZCMI Center mall in downtown Salt Lake City, waiting to grab a brick from the crate and take it home. To these people, the bricks represented special memories and good times spent at the inn at Temple Square.

Over the past month, the historic inn — built in 1931 as the Hotel Temple Square — has been torn down, piece-by-piece, to make room for the City Creek Center, a 20-acre mixed-use development being built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On Saturday, 1,000 bricks from the inn were distributed free to the public. Bruce Clayton, manager of the Crossroads and ZCMI Center malls, said about 500 bricks had been given away by 9:30 a.m.

"A lot of people have been telling us they had their wedding reception at the inn, stayed for their wedding anniversary, or a family event," said Clayton. "It's pretty much been along those lines."

Nicole Lagemann and her husband, Charles, stayed at the inn after being married at the Salt Lake Temple on Aug. 1 of this year.

"We had plans to go and do anniversaries there," said Lagemann. "There wasn't even time for us to go back."

Lagemann and her husband each had a brick in hand on Saturday, wrapped in a plastic bag. Charles Lagemann said he planned to clean his brick, which was covered with a fine layer of dirt and dust, and etch the couple's names into it.

Meanwhile, Robert Nilson, from Idaho, had grabbed a brick to give to his daughter for Christmas. She and her husband got married last summer, he said, and spent their honeymoon at the inn.

Demolition on the inn is expected to last until mid-January, after which crews are expected to tear down the Crossroads Plaza parking structure, according to Okland Construction, which is doing demolition work on the downtown block where Crossroads is located.

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E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com