Sanpete's Spring City residents revere and preserve town's history

Home, church, school.

It's the triumvirate that takes us though our formative years and beyond, instilling the values we live by, giving us the sense of who we are.

In small towns, especially, the three become entwined, providing the proverbial village necessary for development. And in small towns, especially, the actual buildings connected to each area become indelible symbols of the triumvirate with a power to evoke, inspire and connect that reaches beyond the years. It's why preservation of those buildings becomes so important.

So it is in Spring City, a community of about a thousand people in the heart of Sanpete County, where "heritage" is a word that is not taken lightly.

Spring City is a leader in historic preservation and restoration, resident Alison Anderson says. "The town was designated a national historic district in the late 1970s, and since then more than 50 buildings in town have been restored."

She and her husband, Chris, live in one of them, a building called the "Pink Castle" when it belonged to Jacob Johnson, who served as a U.S. congressman, district judge and U.S. district attorney at the turn of the century. It was "dilapidated, but not hopeless," when they bought it five years ago "because Chris wanted to try the small-town lifestyle," she says. It now shines, on a lot complete with guest house, barn and room for chickens.

"We're not any less busy in a small town," Alison Anderson says, "but this is the most friendly place. I can call people at 5 and have 10 to sit down for dinner at 7. It is a lovely place."

As part of the Mormon colonization of the area that began in 1849, Spring City is a prime example of the Mormon City Plan, she says. The town was plotted into five-acre blocks, with each family receiving a quarter-block, where they built a home, put up a barn, a granary and other outbuildings and perhaps planted an orchard and a garden. A meeting house for church was generally the first public building built in the center of town, followed by a school. A small commercial district often developed, as well.

In time, wood gave way to stone as a building material, but because of economics and circumstance, Spring City never developed into a metropolis; thus, much of its original character remains.

The town celebrates that character each year with Heritage Day, on the Saturday before Memorial Day; this year it's on May 28. The event includes a tour of many of the town's pioneer-era homes and buildings as well as an art and antiques auction and sale, breakfast and lunch, an artists' reception and more.