Having a good old time — Pioneer Craft House offers classes, puppet shows, festivals

"Come learn something old," invite the folks at the Pioneer Craft House. Old is not only fun, they say. Old is important; old is still worth considering; old should not be buried by new.

"We don't want to lose the old arts and crafts," says Jim Davis, a member of the Pioneer Craft House Executive Committee. Spinning, weaving, pottery, silversmithing, stained-glass making — they are not only creative and artistic and fun, they are an important part of who we are, he says. And, he adds, there could not be a better place to learn them.

If he had a choice of learning pottery in a sterile environment surrounded by modern glass and steel or in the basement in what used to be the gymnasium for Granite High School, there's no question which one he would pick. "This is such a homey, eclectic environment," he says. "There's such a spirit here, you can't help but be inspired. And we get the most eclectic group of people who come here to learn pottery. You come sit at these wheels, and life goes away."

Not only that, he says, but you will be in a place that has been a center of learning for more than 160 years. "Our site, our building is the oldest continuous operating school in Utah."

Pioneer Craft House is tucked away on the corner of 3300 South and 500 East in South Salt Lake, and its story began in 1847 with the arrival of the Mormon pioneers.

In 1847, after groups had settled the downtown areas, they sent others out to find and settle on the streams," says Davis. "Mill Creek runs through here, so a group came to settle. That first year they lived in mud huts and dugouts. But one of the first things they did was build an adobe building to serve as a church and school. It was located on this site."

In the 1880s, that adobe building was replaced by the brick one that still stands on the site. It was used as a church school, a territorial school, a county school, and in 1905 it became Granite High School. In the 1920s, additional acreage across the street was purchased by the Granite School District, which in those days extended from 2100 to 6200 South and from the Jordan River to the Wasatch Mountains, says Davis.

A new high school was built, but the old building was still used for shop and wood classes, and then as a junior high. But by the late 1940s, it had outlived that usefulness.

Enter Glenn Johnson Beeley. "Mrs. Beeley was the original recycler. She never threw anything away and was great at salvaging things no one else wanted," says Davis.