Volunteer's dedication revives Provo's Pioneer Village

PROVO — As honorary mayor of Provo's half-acre Pioneer Village, Steve C. Nelson also is the village's main resident.

"He has spent eight to 10 hours a day there for the last three months," said Nelson's wife, Connie, who says she sometimes has to visit the village to see her husband. "His heart and soul right now are in the village. He looks at it as a real gem for Utah Valley because there are things there they don't have anywhere else."

This week, Nelson is getting ready for the village's grand opening pioneer craft fair Saturday.

"I am really passionate. I am committed to this village," Nelson said as he showed off the village's newest exhibit, a cabin moved log by log from Roosevelt to Provo and set up to serve as a general store. Work on the store was completed about two weeks ago. "I love it, and I love what we have done with it," he said

What Nelson has done over the past few years is breathe new life into the 80-year-old village in Provo's North Park at 500 West and 600 North.

When Nelson arrived on the scene in 2006, the village, operated by the Sons of the Utah Pioneers, was worn-out and run-down.

"At the time, it was held together with baling wire and good old-fashioned pioneer spirit," said Richard Mathews, who then served as chairman of the local chapter of the Sons of the Utah Pioneers. "He has turned it around. He's part of the village's life and soul now. He has made what was old, new again."

Nelson's actual goal is to make what was old seem older.

"Everything here is historically correct," he said. "We are trying to reproduce the city as it would have looked before 1869. We want people to come here and get a feel for what it was like before the railroad came."

When restoring the John Turner home, for example, Nelson said the Sons of the Utah Pioneers decided on old wooden shingles rather than sod, which had been suggested by some, after learning that Provo had a shingle factory operating in 1859.

"I think John Turner would have wanted shingles on the house he built for his bride," Nelson said.

Robert Carter, a local historian and member of the task force, said Nelson's dedication has turned the village around.

"To get the village changed, you needed someone with a personality who would take it and run with it," Carter said. "Steve has been running ever since."