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Show NPS Form 10-900-8 U1ah WordPeI1oct 7.0 Format (Revised May 1997) OMB No. 10024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section No. Jl Page ~ Johnson/Kearns Hotel, Springville, Utah County, UT outside influences. The pioneer period, with its emphasis upon basic essentials of community survival, self-sufficiency, and cooperative group effort, was brought to a final close. 4 By the early 1900s, Springville had grown to a city of approximately 3,500. The 1911 R.l. Polk & Co. Directory shows Springville to have two banks, fourteen grading contractors, three hotels/rooming houses, one flour mill, one canning factory, and a municipal electric power plant. There were four general stores in operation: G.S. Wood Mercantile Co.; Deal Bros. & Mendenhall Co.; Packard Bros. & Co.; and I.T. Reynolds & Co. Principals in the latter three firms also were prominent in the field of railroad contracting. Springville was served by two railroads: the Denver & Rio Grande western, and the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad of the Union Pacific system. The Johnson/Kearns Hotel at 94 W. 200 South was built for Moses and Ann Kearns Johnson about 1892. It was known as the Johnson Hotel until 1910, when it was renamed the Kearns Hotel. The present building replaced an earlier log house that appears on early Sanborn Maps of the site. The original owner of the site (by mayor's deed, 1870) was Mary Williamson Snelson, widow of Thomas Snelson. She sold the property (1890) a year and a half before her death, to her grandson William Henry Kearns. William sold it the following year to local businessman and contractor Henry Taylor Reynolds. H.T. Reynolds Company had a lumber yard and general store on the same block and to the east. Henry Reynolds sold the ground the following year (April 1893) to Moses Johnson. Moses Johnson (Mose) was the youngest surviving son of Springville pioneer, LDS Church bishop and postmaster Aaron Johnson, and his third wife Jane Scott. Moses was born in Springville in 1860 and married Anna Kearns, a half sister of William Henry Kearns' father, in 1888. Mose was a prominent actor and devoted his early life almost entirely to dramatics. He traveled with various theatrical troupes throughout the western states. His greatest success as an actor was as Karihor in the play Korianton. He was also an early teacher of dramatics. Moses is listed in the 1891 Polk Directory as a teacher of elocution. In 1911 he retired from theatrical work and died at the home of his son in 1936. The Johnsons began construction of the hotel c.1892, and probably completed construction in the summer of 1900, after taking a $600 mortgage. H. T. Reynolds & Company also files a notice of lien against the property in August of 1900 for the nonpayment of a $263.62 bill for building materials. The building was completed by the end of 1900 and appears in Don C. Johnson's history of Springville (Don C. was Moses' oldest full brother). The photo caption indicates that Anna ran the hotel, known at the time as the Manitou Hotel, and was listed as the proprietor. The Johnsons were divorced in June of 1906. Anna received a 1/3 interest in the hotel, in lieu of alimony. Anna returned her 1/3 interest the following year (1907) for $400. Moses sold the property in 1909 to William Henry Kearns5 and Loretta Chase Kearns for $1000. 4See Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic Historv of the latter-Day Saints 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1958). 5 Who had owned the property in 1890 and sold it in 1891. X See continuation sheet |
