83126

This text message is used to keep the image from rotating in ocr process. Be sure to crop the top .25" off after the ocr process. 4800 S WANDER LANE HOLLADAY COMMUNITY CHURCH HOLLADAY, SALT LAKE COUNTY UTAH STATE HISTORY 11111 1111111111111111111111 1111111111111111111111111111111111111 3 9222 00535 6253 Clippilig Service (SOl) 31M·8678 SALT LAKE TRIBUNE JACK GOODMAN <• .~. Changing Times in Once-Rural Holladav . '~' '...:. .... . ; 0/ From the look and sound of things. there is more talk of civic matters in Holladay and Cotton· wood than there has ever been since the land in the lee of the Wasatch was first settled by John Holladay. At this moment. cardboard signs and placards dot the countryside near Spring Creek to remind potential voters that on Tuesday they can remove the Holladay-Cottonwood acreage from Salt Lake County government and choose. if they wish. to establish a new city. It has been 152 years since LDS pioneer John Holladay and his cohorts began pasturing livestock and raising crops in what .ieems likely to become Utah 's newest city, namely Holladay Cottonwood. The area proposed for incorporation extends south from 4500 South to the east-west sector of Interstate 215. and would incorporate the area from Highland Drive (2000 East) all the way to the north-south leg of 1-215 and Wasatch Boulevard. The pro-incorporation folks fear they will be swallowed by such expansionminded cities as Murray, Sandy and the like. The anti folk are irked by the likelihood of life in a new cousin of Midvale. Taylors,;lle or West Valley City, further weakening an already tottering county govemmenta! structure. This column is not the place for the pros and cons of a matter to be decided at the polls. Instead, this columnist hop~ to review the architectural merits and demerits of HOlladay-Cottonwood. and to concentrate. for a bit. upon the rather unique church edifice shown in todav's sketch the Holladay United Church of Christ, a "Community Church" at the northwest comer of 4800 South and Wander Lane. It is an unfortunate fact that few buildings dating back to the years prior to this century remain in the acreage watered by Spring Creek. Big Cottonwood Creek and the irrigation streams once painstakingly engineered and guarded by rural residents. Back in 1976. '('. Jaclr.Goociman Holladay Community Church, built in 1955 or thereabouts, remains an architectural fixture in the Holladay-Cottonwood area. Residents will vote on establishing their own city on Tuesday. a centennial volume edited by Stephen Carr, Ed Firmage, Connie Smith and other residents showed few remaining dwellings and even barns in a plat that included Olympus Junior High, the Holladay branch of the County Library, the Holladay Post Office. the Holladay South LDS Stake Center and that agent of major change, the Cottonwood Mall. In the years immediately following World War II. the Cottonwood Mall wiped out a lovely pasture. memories of farm fields and a compact town of Holladay. Today there are even fewer histOrically significant buildings remaining in the old area. Aside from the heavily trafficked mall, the character of the countryside had begun to change from rural to suburban when the Holladay Community Church was organized under the auspices of the Congregational Church in 1953. Large homes bullt by such non-Mormons as the Bambergers and the Wallace family had already risen on Walker Lane. Arch & Ray's gas station was no longer the only one on Highland Drive, Neilson's store and a movie house had disappeared. Clawson Silver'S comer store had expanded. and Cobblecrest, an inn where beer could be had even in prohibition days, had already vanished from the comer of 6200 South and 2300 East. The unique-appearing Holladay Community Church - one of the first large A-frame structures in the valley - grew out of necessity. Holladay and adjoining Cottonwood were by then no longer entirely Monnon . No one quite remembers how architect Rowe Smith persuaded the original congregants and the pastor. the Rev. S. Macon Cowles that such a radical-appearing structure as he blueprinted could be a proper house of worship - but a sizable group of non-LDS Christians were soon persuaded. In addition to Sunday services. youngsters of kindergarten age were soon being driven by their parents to a day school taught in part by Lila Peglau and Augie Plenk. The Community Church fo lks had met for a while in the basement of Clawson Silver'S store at the crossroad comer where Holladay Boulevard and the Murray-Holladay roads converge. By late 1955, historians tell us, the unfinished sanctuary (under the peak of the A-frame) was in use, along with a parrish hall. Today's musings are especially timely , not just because of the Tuesday balloting on formation of a new city - but because the church members have just completed a $1.5 million expansion. The sanctuary now can seat some 450 members and guests, the social hall is far larger than the old parish hall, but expansion-architect Don Mahoney has managed to maintain the feel of the old structure. especially in the sanctuary. There parishioners face an altar that has behind it a grouping of exceptionally tall windows that give striking views of the nearby Wasatch peaks. A giant pine, and two towering trees south and east of the still unique-appearing edifice, partially block the view from Wander Lane or 4800 South of this extended church structure. However the comer, with a nearby stream, manages to retain much of the neighborhood 's once rural look. The Rev. Michael Jackson. and his associate Will Burham are in charge of church religious affairs nowadays - which brings one to the matter of marked change in this once purely Mormon community. You see. since the original church structure was essentially completed in 1958. members of specifiC denominations that wor- shipped in the ecclesiastical "joint building" have gone their various ways. Several other Protestant churches have been established in the nearby area, so members of the Community Church were free to leave and help establish a Holladay Baptist Church. (I believe in 1960). Our Savior's Lutheran Church came into being in 1961 and the Holladay-Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church was given form circa 1964. St. James Episcopal Church was also formed and strengthened by worshippers from the Holladay Community Church in about the mid-1960's. As a result one might almost call this church near the old center of Holladay a "mother church." One thing is certain. In these days when Orthodox Christians and Muslims have battled to the death in Serbia - and Christians are engaged in "ethnic cleansing," - there has been no sign of ill-will at Holladay Community Church. Perhaps that is because one of its many thoughtful pastors was the late Rev. Horace McMullan. who served during the 1960s, long before a daughter, now Deedee Corradini became the mayor in the big city to the north. Nowadays the Community Church is basically deSignated the Holladay United Church of Christ - but newcomers of any denomination are welcome in the modem-looking 50-year-old church building. The structure still looks different from any of the half-hundred or so Latter-day Saints wardhouses or stake centers in what may soon be the valley's newest city. It won't be changed if Holladav-Cottonwood become an independent city or not. Jack Goodman has been associated with The Salt Lake Tribune as a staff or free-lance writer for 52 years.