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United States Department of the Interior National Pam Service I National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 Erekson Artillo Dairy Farmhouse Name of Property OMB No. 1024-0018 Salt Lake County, Utah county and State Arion Erekson served on the boards of the Utah Farm Bureau, the Salt Lake County Farm Bureau, and the Big and Little Cottonwood Tanner Ditch Company. As a professional dairyman, Arion Erekson was an advocate of raw milk. The family sold the milk directly from the farm, even though there was a processing plant, the Hiland Dairy, less than a mile away. In 1959, an editorial report in the Provo Daily Herald of a meeting where Arion Erekson was the keynote speaker, noted the following: Mr. Erekson operates a dairy of 75 cows in Murray and sells all the milk, raw, at this plant and often runs short of demand. Salt Lake Citizens tell me they are not always lucky enough to find any milk not already sold. Mr. Erekson has answered several summons into court for so-called violation of Utah's raw milk act, but as yet no judge has been dumb enough to believe Erekson has violated the law ... farmers have the same right to sell milk at the farm as they have to sell anything else they produce.4 The Artillo Guernsey Dairy Farm reached its peak of production in early 1960s around the time the farmhouse was expanded. A 1964 tax assessor's card noted sixteen outbuildings and structures associated with the farm. The commercial dairy outbuildings were primarily located southeast of the farmhouse. There was a drained pasture to the south and another more swampy pasture to the west. The north field was used for regular corn and corn silage. Near the farmhouse were resources for the family: a garden plot, the old granary, and the pumphouse where cans of milk were stored. By the 1970s, the dairy pastures and fields were surrounded by new development. Several large subdivisions had been built to the east. The intersection at 900 East and 5600 South was a thriving commercial district. In 1976, the Wheeler farm was abandoned and in 1977, the other branch of the family started advertising "Erekson Dairy lots close to Fashion Place MaiL" In their later years, Arion and Helen scaled back the Artillo dairy, but were pasturing cows in the south field until 1990 when they began to sell off portions of the farm acreage. The larger parcel, the former south pasture, was sold to Village Mall Association, Inc., who built the Sport Mall, touted as "America's first sport and shopping mall complex." The Sports Center Business Park includes several office buildings on the north half of the former dairy farm. The last parcel, the vacant lot next to the farmhouse, was sold off in 1997. Arion Erekson died in 2003, but members of the family still occupy the residence. Although the cows are gone and the views of the house are partially ObS<tW~ by an office building, many older residents of Murray consider the farmhouse on the hill to "a ndmark in the neighborhood. The Erekson Artillo Dairy Farmhouse makes a significant co 2 ibution to the historic resources of Murray City, particularly as an important reminder of the former 900 East dairy corridor. 4 Provo Daily Herald, August 18, 1959. Section 8 page 13