Manti Motor Company Building

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OMS No. 102-4-0018, NPS Form United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section No. §. Page ~ Manti Motor Company Building, Manti, Sanpete County, UT School District in order to bus children from far-away communities to the schools in Manti. This "bus" consisted of an automobile that had been altered to include extra seats. Probably owing to hard times caused by the Great Depression, in 1930 the Manti Motor Company leased its building to the lndependent Gas & Oil Company, and in 1938 the Manti Investment Company acquired the building through a tax sale. In 1940 the State Tax Commission transmitted the name of the corporation of The Manti Motor Company to the Secretary of State, due to the corporation's failure to file tax returns after 1937, and the Manti Motor Company effectively ceased to exist. (In 1973 the Office of Secretary of State issued a final Certificate oflnvoluntary Dissolution.) From 1938 into the 1990s, the old Manti Motor Company Building changed hands on only a couple of occasions. From the 1940s until the cunent owner purchased it in 2006 the building continued as a Chrysler automobile dealership under the name Nell's Motor. There was also a service station and auto repair shops located in the building. Interestingly, another business located in the building during the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. This was a parachute manufacture, known as Sorenson Manufacturing Company. They made various types of parachutes, including personnel and large cargo parachutes. The company also used a building next door to this one and was in business until the end of that war. The building then went back in business as Nell ' s Motor. 1 ln 2006 the cunent owner acquired the building and began extensive rehabilitation work to convert the building to its cmTent use as office space and a reception hall. Architectura] Significance The Manti Motor Company Building is designed in a sort of eclectic early twentieth century commercial style that somewhat evokes the Mission and Prairie School styles of the era. The building's architectural significance lies in its use as the first building in Manti, and possibly the entire Sanpete Valley, to be designed specifically as an automobile showroom and repair garage. The only other building at the time in Manti associated with the automobile was a local repair garage. Interestingly, there were a couple of wagon construction shops still in town at this time, as the automobile was only beginning to emerge in the rural areas of the state. Lauri ts Peder Miller's unique design for the roof of the Manti Motor Company, without interior support columns, allowed for the unobstructed movement of cars and trucks within the building. The roof structure consists of site-built primary trusses that span the full 50-foot width of the building, with wood top and bottom chords, wood diagonal compression members, and vertical steel-rod tension members. At alternating panel points are secondary trusses with wood chords and wood diagonal members, at right angles to and interlaced within the primary trusses. The visual and structural effect is that of a space truss system, an innovation 1 Information provided in a letter from William A. Mickelson, Manti City Recorder and Manti Certified Local Government.