Building block: Salt Lake City was a model of urban planning from the start

From the very beginning, Salt Lake City was a planned city. One of the first things the Mormon settlers did was to lay out the gridwork of a town.

In 1855, Jules Remy, a visitor to the city, gave this description:

"We entered it by one of the principal streets and saw to the right and left gardens and orchards, in which the trees, especially the peach, were laden with fruit … All the streets are 130 feet wide and run from north to south and from east to west … The streets cross each other at right angles, forming squares of houses, or blocks … The majority of the houses are built of adobes, generally in a simple style, frequently elegant and always clean."

Commercial development was less planned, with residences mixed in with early shops until a business district eventually arose at the center of town.

If you take a long look at one of those downtown blocks, you will see patterns of development that reflect urban growth and may teach valuable lessons about city planning, says Sarah Morrow, a graduate student at the University of Utah in city and metropolitan planning and a member of the South Salt Lake Planning Commission.

Now, when downtown once again transforms before our very eyes, is a good time to do that, she says.

For her master's project, Morrow traced the evolution of Block 75 — the block which contained the ZCMI Center and is bordered by State Street and Main Street on the east and west and South Temple and 100 South on the north and south. She recently presented some of her findings at a brown-bag lecture at the Utah State History Department.

The block gets its designation from the original numbering system, which started at 900 South and 300 East with Block 1 and then accrued up and down the grid.

By 1848, she noted, the 10-acre blocks that had been carved out of the grid were further divided into various-size lots. Because Block 75, which is kitty-corner from the temple block, was a prime location, several lots were given to prominent church leaders, including Jedediah M. Grant, Daniel H. Wells and Ezra T. Benson.

Some church buildings were also included on the block, including the first church historian's office.

Most of the first commercial development, she said, occurred on the 100 South side.

Morrow took a look at the block at roughly five-to-10-year increments to trace various developmental changes.

In the 1860s, the first original buildings were those owned by prominent LDS leaders, she said. In the 1870s, the Salt Lake Theater was added on the corner of State Street and 100 South, the first bank was built and the first ZCMI store added.