Lehi Match Up Historic Sites and Tradition of Lehi

Curfew Bell at the Lehi Fire Department

On July 18, 1887, the Lehi City Council passed a Curfew Law to control vandalism caused by groups of youngsters roaming the town after dark.

The specific ordinance read: “It shall be unlawful for any person under fourteen years of age to be or remain in or upon any of the streets, alleys or public places in this city at night after the hour of nine o’clock, unless said person is accompanied by a parent, guardian or other person having the legal custody of such minor person, or is in performance of any errand of duty directed by such parent, guardian or other person having the care and the custody of such minor person, or whose employment makes it necessary to be upon said street, alleys or public places during the night time after said specified hours.

“Any person violating the provisions of this section shall, on conviction, be fined in any sum not to exceed five dollars for each offense and shall stand committed until such fine and costs are paid.”

In September 1887, Mayor George Webb was authorized $50 to purchase a bell which was installed in a belfry atop city hall. The curfew bell, rung by the marshal every evening at 9, at first sent children scurrying to their homes. While the curfew age was eventually raised to 16 and later to 18, the pealing of the bell soon became ordinary, and children and teenagers could be seen playing under the town’s streetlights long after dark.

Aside from its curfew warning, the 9 p.m. sounding served as the standard for setting all Lehi timepieces. Many a Lehi citizen recalls seeing his father check his watch nightly as the bell sounded its timely signal.

The bell also served as a fire alarm. The town was divided into four quadrants and the number of taps of the bell indicated the area of town citizens were to run to form a bucket brigade. The Lehi volunteer fire department was not formed until 1901.

Beginning in 1895, the curfew bell was also sounded at 9:30 each Sunday morning to announce Sunday School. The historic bell remained atop city hall (remodeled into a fire station) until a new fire station with electric siren was completed in 1938.

The bell was then placed in storage and used only for early morning Fourth of July ringings, when it was hauled about town on a trailer. Enthusiastic, hammer wielding firemen caused several notable dents in the old alarm.

In 1973, the historic bell was permanently mounted on a framework in front of the fire station at 54 N. Center. When the new fire station at 176 N. Center was completed, the fire department installed the Curfew Bell in front of the new facility.

176 N. Center St.

Dry Creek Park

100 West 1500 North

Hutchings Museum

55 N. Center

The Hutchings Museum building, also known as Lehi’s Veterans Memorial Building, is one of Lehi’s greatest historic buildings and was the first municipal building constructed in the United States to honor veterans of World War I.

According to the building’s National Register of Historic Places marker, the idea for the building was first raised on Nov. 11, 1918, two weeks after Armistice Day. The building was designed to have three sections—the front to house a memorial hall, the south a city hall and the north a Carnegie Library. While the library was dedicated in 1921, the rest of the $55,000 building was not dedicated until Memorial Day, May 31, 1928.

“Since then, the building has hosted numerous city, community and religious functions,” reads the building’s marker, “including the W.P.A., Alpine School District, the Lehi Second Ward [of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], the Lehi 5th Ward, American Red Cross, Alpine Soil Conservation District, the Ground Observation Corps, the National Rifle Association, the Lehi Junior Wildlife Association, the National Guard, the Lehi Senior Citizen Center and Lehi American Legion Post 9. The municipal part of the building has housed City Hall, two jails, a fire station, the Lehi Ambulance Association and the Lehi Police Department.”

The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Keeley’s Ice Cream

164 West Main (was covered by a new building in 2023

Lehi City Cemetery

1100 North 400 East

Lehi Heritage Day

123 North Center Street

Since 2014, Lehi Heritage Day occurs every year on Labor Day to honor Lehi’s history as well as those making history today. Since its inception, the event has highlighted themes such as life within the Lehi City Fort, Lehi in the 1960s, the history of the peoples and places of the Lehi Third Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the like. More than 100 living people have been honored as well. Their names can be viewed at the Lehi Heritage Day Monument at the Walk of Fame Garden in front of the Legacy Center at 123 N. Center. Lehi Heritage Day features an honoree parade and program, historical displays and activities and a classic car and bike show.  The event was the brainchild of Lehi Historical Society and Archive founder John Knollin Haws, Jr. (1954-2017). 

Lehi High School

180 North 500 East

Lehi Roller Mills

833 East Main Street

A”er considerable effort by the Lehi Commercial Club, our town’s first booster organization, the June 22, 1905, Lehi Banner announced that Lehi was to have “a new flour mill with modern paHern and equipment.” Stockholders of the Lehi Mill & Elevator Company invested $20,000 in the new venture

The site for the mill, 833 E. Main, was selected because it was on the Lehi Sugar Factory spur of the Union Pacific Railroad (the sugar factory was a mile further down the line).

The contract for the mill’s machinery was awarded to the Wolf Company of Chambersburg, Penn., the largest suppliers of mill machinery in the United States. This equipment included four sets of double rollers, one washer, two purifiers, two reels, one cleaner, one dust roller, one gyrator, one separator and one bran duster.

The three-story-high building, with its multiude of cables, belts and whirring machinery, was initially powered by a 50-horsepower motor. Under the management of Parry and Franck, the first sack of flour was produced on Apr. 2, 1906. Full daily capacity of 60 to 70 bushels was soon achieved.

The immediate success of the mill required that an addition be built in May of 1906. And when the directors met later that summer on July 30, they decided to immediately erect an elevator with a capacity of 10,000 bushels

By 1907, the Lehi Mill & Elevator Company had changed its name to the Lehi Roller Mills and was storing and processing virtually all the grain grown in the area. On Aug. 25, 1909, Giles & Giles leased the business. This was only a short-term arrangement, however, as George G. Robinson soon assumed the lease. He then purchased the mill from the co-op and began an extensive modernization project.

In 1915, Robinson contracted with the Birrell Engineer Company to construct a 43,000- bushel capacity grain elevator. Four concrete silos, 10 feet in diameter, rested on a concrete base 41-feet-8-inches square and six feet deep. The four silos each held 10,000 bushels and were joined on the sides so as to form a fifth compartment that had a capacity of 3,000 bushels all completely rodent and fireproof

The Turkey Red and Peacock Brand logos, colorfully painted on the east side of the concrete silos, have been a Lehi tradition for nearly eight decades. After George G. Robinson’s 1936 death, his sons, Sherman and Raymond Robinson, continued to operate the mill.

During World War II, all flour milled was sold to the government for the war effort. R. Sherman Robinson, George G.’s grandson, who had been taught to run the mill by his father, became the manager of the family-owned mill in 1980.

In the late 1970s, it became evident that in order to stay in the milling business, the Lehi Roller Mills would have to undergo complete retooling and expansion. Accordingly, the Robinsons ins=gated a thorough modernization process installing imported Swiss milling equipment that, when completed in 1985, increased production capacity to 60,000 bushels a day. The 1990 completion of a new warehouse increased its storage capacity to 100,000 bushels.

Aside from its milled products, the Lehi Roller Mills is best known for serving as the backdrop for many of the scenes in Paramount’s 1984 blockbuster movie, Footloose.

Lehi Round-Up Signature Logo

Roundabout at 500 West and Main Street

Since as early as 1938 and for many years since, variations of a cowboy have been Lehi’s signature image with it featured on Lehi welcome signs and the like. In 1979, Stanford Russon was commissioned to create the logo still used today by the Lehi Round-Up Rodeo, which has been running since 1937. On June 17, 2006, Tony R. Chytka’s bronze statue of the cowboy on his bucking bronc, or the Lehi Round-Up Signature Logo, was dedicated at the Fifth West Roundabout. The dedication program reads, “… that logo continues and we have a bronze statue to remind us of those pioneers who established our community with memorable and dedicated effort, along with our annual citywide celebration with a week full of activities including the rodeo for citizens of Lehi, friends and neighbors.” Photo courtesy of John Jay Harris.

Osmond Designs

151 East State

In 1903, Lehi’s largest mercantile, the People’s Co-operative Institute (P.C.I.), which owned both an uptown and downtown complex, completed construction of the 22,000-square-foot building at 151 E. State, where Osmond Designs resides today.

It was one of the first stores in Lehi to be wired for electricity. The June 4, 1903, Lehi Banner commented that it was a nice place to do business because there were “no dark corners.” It was also the first building in Lehi to have cement sidewalks. “This is something new in our city,” noted the Apr. 9, 1903, Lehi Banner, “and we hope to see our merchants on main street [sic] do likewise and help make our city look more metropolitan.”

In 1904, former Co-op manager, W. E. Racker, purchased the downtown Co-op, known as The Branch Store, which was located at the southeast corner of 200 West and Main Street, to open Racker Mercantile. To advertise the consolidation of its business interests, the People’s Co-op announced in the Aug. 4, 1904, Lehi Banner that “The ‘Branch is dead,’ long live the MAIN STORE of People’s Co-op on State Street.”

In 1912, the People’s Co-op, under manager S. I. Goodwin’s direction, purchased nearly an entire block of property immediately to the west of the large store. This included the Union Hotel, Peter Larsen’s Butcher Shop and the three Wines’ Cottages on the west side of First East

In the mid-1920s, PCI business began to dwindle. The reasons were rather complicated. Although a gasoline pump and two 600-gallon tanks were installed in front of the store in 1916, the “age of the automobile” made it easy to shop in other communities. Although the Co-op remained Lehi’s largest mercantile, other local stores began to successfully compete for business. From 1926-1936, the troubled PCI had at least six different managers.

As the Depression descended on America, economic hardship struck ZCMI, parent company of People’s Co-op. In the fall of 1937, ZCMI management announced that it was abandoning 20 retail branches, including the Lehi business. “The change in policy was made,” announced Vice President and General Manager Richard W. Madsen, “because independent merchants in smaller communities preferred not to buy from us because we were competitors in retail lines.”

Many of the former ZCMI branches were quickly sold in their entirety to local merchants. But the large Lehi property with its numerous buildings was sold piecemeal.

The largest Co-op building at 151 E. State became a roller-skating rink in February of 1939. In July of 1948, Harry Grass leased the place and established Grass Furniture. In 1955, a wholesale war surplus store was opened. In 1960, Christensen Department Stores purchased the building and operated a wholesale warehouse for their chain of stores and also for 65 other establishments throughout the western states.

In the 1990s, ZCMI placed a replica of its original “all-seeing eye” moniker on the original Coop complex to highlight its history in Lehi although it has since been covered up or removed. The moniker was also placed on the Co-op’s downtown location, which was then occupied by Colonial House.

On Mar. 4, 2005, Osmond Designs opened for business in the historic building on State Street and remains there today.

Porter’s Place

24 West Main Street (no longer there)

Skyridge High School

3000 North Center Street

Stock Parade/All-Horse Parade

Lehi’s annual All Horse Parade, held on the Thursday afternoon of the Lehi Round-Up City Celebration, has a rich and long history. Early Lehi Celebrations held on the 4th or 24th of July often included a parade and in the 19th century all the parades included horses. As Lehi entered the 20th century and the age of the automobile, traditions continued with parades.

Starting in 1937, the Lehi celebration included a rodeo. It became traditional for a parade to wind through town with rodeo cowboys, producers and entertainers riding their horses down the streets to attract a crowd to the rodeo.

Eventually, the rodeo parade evolved into what the Lehi Civic Improvement Association called the Stock Parade. It was held on the Thursday of celebration week, starting at Wines Park and ending in the rodeo grounds. Over the years, individuals and groups have participated—wagons, buckboards, surreys, chariots and all sorts of animals. One year the rodeo entertainment was a bull buffalo ridden by his trainer, and they made it into the parade as well. Riding groups like to show off their skill as they demonstrate precision formations with just whistled commands.

Many years there were wrecks in the lineup with riders falling off or getting bucked off. Sometimes a horse would kick other horses. Occasionally there would be a run away. Some aspiring riders didn’t make the parade because their horse wouldn’t cooperate, or they fell off and were taken to the hospital. But most riders made it through the parade, and the reward for riding was usually a free ticket into the rodeo and the opportunity to ride in the rodeo grounds before the rodeo began.

Over the years, riders have dressed as mountain men, Native Americans, knights and princesses. Almost any costume you can associate with a horse has shown up at the parade. Many ride in western.

Around 2010, the parade started to be called the All-Horse Parade as no other livestock was in the parade. Today, the Lehi Round-Up Rodeo Committee refers to the parade as the All-Horse Parade.

Third Ward/Lehi North Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

For the most part, the original members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled in the area bounded by the old Lehi fort wall (which ran from 100 North to Center Street to 300 South to 400 West).

In the early 1870s, two railroads intersected in the northwest quadrant of town, igniting a new part of town known variously as “the New Survey,” “Over the Creek,” and/or “Lehi Junction.” Living in the far north meant Lehi Junction Church members had a considerable distance to travel to attend meetings at the Lehi Ward Meetinghouse on 200 West and 100 South.

When Lehi’s North Branch was organized on Oct. 1, 1893, and church services were held in the existing Franklin School, a building committee was almost immediately organized. Within four months, the people had subscribed $700 toward construction of a meetinghouse.

On Sunday, Oct. 14, 1894, worship services were first held in the branch meetinghouse, though the building was not fully completed. During the meeting, the building committee noted that the structure cost $1,656. Many of the old records refer to the North Branch building as Zion’s Hill Meeting House because rock for the limestone foundation was quarried from Zion’s Hill on the Lake Mountains, which are 30 minutes south of Saratoga Springs on Soldier Pass Road off of UT-68).

Statistical records of the North Branch at the end of 1894 list 64 families in the area. By the end of 1897, the branch membership had increased to 592 souls.

When Lehi was divided into four wards in 1903, the North Branch became the home of the new Lehi Third Ward. In 1955, upon completion of the Third/Seventh Ward building one block east, the old Third Ward Meetinghouse was sold for a private residence.

In the late 1960s, Ross and Jean Lamb purchased the home and had it placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. It is the oldest LDS Church still standing in Utah County.

Utah Lake/Timpanogos Mt.

Measuring 24 miles long and 12 miles wide, Utah Lake is the third largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Its average depth is 9 ft., with a maximum depth of 14 ft.

Of its 13 native species, only the Utah sucker and the June sucker remain

Its temperature gets as high as 80 degrees during the summer, and almost half of its water evaporates each year. Like the Sea of Galilee in Israel that feeds the extremely salty Dead Sea through the Jordan River, Utah Lake’s waters also flow from the south to the north through the Jordan River to the salty Great Salt Lake

At one time the lake hosted a ferryboat with dancing and a full orchestra. There were also more than 10 recreational resorts on the lake.

During the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, two men boxed on the floor of the lake when it dried up.

As early as the 1890s and through the 1930s, “. . . in times of need, hungry Utahns of all cultures were glad to have [the carp from Utah Lake],” according to a Aug. 28, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune article. “The railroad transported the fish for free, and church ministers distributed them.”

The same article reported, “In 1922, the Deseret News reported that fishermen took 10,000 pounds of carp from the lake daily—8,000 pounds for the chicken farmers, and the rest shipped out to Los Angeles (where, the paper said condescendingly, the Chinese, Japanese and Mexicans were glad to have them).”

Sources include: “Utah Lake: Top 20 most interesting facts,” from www.utahlakecommission.org.