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Show Harper J. Dininny House 938 E. Logan Avenue Salt Lake City, Utah 84105 -3- Continuation of History Harper J. Dininny was born June 7, 1851 in A3dison, New York. After attending the local schools there, he went to Union College in Albany, where he graduated with an L.L.B. degree in 1873. Hs was admitted to the New York state bar that sane year and commenced practicing law in his father, J.W. Dininny's, office, where he continued for several years. He married Sarah 0. Ambler on November 19, 1873. The Dininnys apparently moved to Etenver in the 1880s, where Harper became acquainted with the group of men \jho, in 1891, formed the Metropolitan Investment Company. One of those men, B.A. Aribler, was probably his brother-in-law. Dininny was apparently respected for his legal judgment and business acumen, because he was sent to Salt lake City in March 1891 to act as attorney and representative for Metropolitan Investment Company.3 Gilbert L. Chamberlin, who had acted as chief spokesman and promoter of the enterprise since November 1890 in til this time, apparently returned to Denver soon after Dininny f s arrival and was no longer actively involved in the development of Perkins 1 Addition. The Dininnys lived in this house frcm 1891 until about 1894. They moved into other houses in the subdivision vhen they were vacant, including 950 East Logan Avenue (1894-96) and 1630 South 900 East (1897-1900). Mr. Dininny remained in Salt Lake City for \ years after the disolution of Metropolitan Investment Company (around 1893), practicing law and becoming involved in local politics. He had served on the fire and police boards soon after coming to the city, and in 1902 served as chairman of the executive committee of the Democratic State Ccmmittee. In 1905 he was elected Salt Lake City Attorney, which position he continued to hold until his death in 1917. Sarah Dininny died in Salt Lake City in 1923. Their only child, Constance, had married a prominent banker, Melvin H. Sowles, in 1900, and had lived for several years at 259 South 1200 East. In 1898, the house was sold by Commercial National Bank of Denver, which received much of the Perkins Addition property via Dininny and Metropolitan Investment Company in the mid-1890s, to Byron F. and Nellie S. Frobes, who had been living at 150 West 600 South. They remained in this house for the next thirty years. Mrs. Frcbes (1871-1939), a native of Iowa, had come to Utah in 1893 and first taught school in Ogden before moving to Salt Lake City in 1894. From that time until her death in 1939, she continued to teach in the Salt Lake City high schools. Byron Frances Frobes, born in Pennsylvania in 1862, had come to Utah in 1890 and worked as a telegraph operator for Associated Press before becoming superintendent of telegraphing for the Union Pacific Railroad, He died in 1942 in his home at 1059 East South Temple. Frank Staats, a contractor, bought the house in 1929 from the Frobes and divided it into three apartments. He and his wife, Gladys, lived in one of those apartments uitil about 1934 when they moved to 976 East 200 South. They continued to own and rent out the apartments in the house until 1944, when they sold it to Melba B. Burnett. Melba and her husband, Kenneth, lived nearby at 1621 South 1000 East and used this house as income property until |
