| OCR Text |
Show 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, VT 84101 ( 801) 533- 3500 FAX ( 801) 533- 3303 A Unique Home in Peoa Tells Its Tale WE OFTEN LEARN THE HISTORY OF A PIONEER DWELLING from the written records of the people who lived and worked in it. But sometimes the house itself is a historical record. Features of the Oscar F. Lyons home in Peoa, Utah, a tiny farming community twenty minutes from Park City, suggest the character of the people who built and occupied it for three decades. First, the design of the Lyons house- with its two bay windows, three attic gables, and modestly adorned porch- went beyond spartanism while skirting extravagance. The house was not meant to impress but to provide sturdy comfort. Second, among Peoa's pioneer buildings, this house has been superbly maintained. Third, despite this, the house went unpainted until 1990, showing again that its owners were practical folk who could not afford luxuries. The Lyons home reveals more. Its builder used a technique common in the East and Canada but almost unique in pioneer Utah: plank- on- plank construction. In Utah the usual method for building with wood was balloon framing. First a stone foundation was laid. Then a light but sturdy vertical skeleton of framing timbers was erected- sometimes two stories at a time and often assembled on the ground to be raised in one piece. Cross- members were inserted for lateral stability. In plank- on- plank construction, a wall went up by stacking horizontal planks which were nailed together. The boards were thick and heavy- in the Lyons house they used 4 x 8s- and butt-jointed at the comers ( an engineering term for joining components end to end), sometimes staggering the joints layer by layer and sometimes, as in the Lyons house, spiking the ends for greater strength. But sometimes a building as historical record provokes as many questions as it answers. How did this one- of- a- kind method come to be used when every other Utah builder was doing it differently? Who was the builder and where did he learn his craft? To get answers we must turn to written records. Biographical and town histories show the owner, Oscar Fitzallen Lyons, to have been born in Ireland in 1838. Converting to Mormonism, his family immigrated to Utah in 1849. They probably arrived in Peoa soon after its small fort went up in 1860. Life in frontier Peoa was precarious. Indians were such a threat that in 1867- 68 Peoa was abandoned altogether. But settlers returned in 1869, the year 3 1- year- old Oscar married Maria L. Marchant, daughter of Peoa's leading citizen. By 1875 some residents could afford more substantial homes, and sometime between 1875 and 1880 Oscar and Maria were among them. Judging by their house and the variety of work Oscar took on over the years- fanner, stockraiser, postmaster, and later a law ( more) practice- they prospered while never becoming outright wealthy. Since plank- on- plank construction was not used in Ireland, Oscar probably contracted out his house. Local tradition says that the contractor was a Mr. Criddle from Morgan. It seems likely that Criddle learned this construction method while living on the eastern seaboard or in Canada. He may have applied the technique to this one house because of an abundance of timber and nails. ( Amassed by Oscar during ten years of bachelorhood?) And perhaps Criddle used this method only once ( plank- on- plankw as used elsewhere in Utah for outbuildings but not for houses) precisely because of the abundance of materials required. We may never know, for on these points the Lyons house is mute- except to testify that its designers built for keeps. Sources: National Register of Historical Places Nomination Form; Frank Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah ( Salt Lake City: Western Epics); Echoes of Ymerday: Summit C o w Centennial Hirtory ( Summit County: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1947). THEH ISTORBYLA ZERi s produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone 533- 3500. 9603 10 ( BB) |
