Chase Home Museum History
In 1847, soon after the arrival of the first pioneers
in the Salt Lake Valley, Isaac Chase built a sawmill and
a one room shanty on Emigration Creek. A few years later
Mormon leader Brigham Young, who owned neighboring land,
joined with Chase and they built a flourmill and a two-story
adobe house in the center of their 110 acre pioneer farm.
That farm became Liberty Park and today both structures,
the Brigham Young Mill and the Isaac Chase Home, still
remain.
Construction of the Chase Home began in the winter of
1853 with much of the work being done by the same crew
that was working on the nearby mill. It was built using
adobe bricks, made just a few miles away, in the traditional
central hall floor plan that was typical of the period.
It featured parlors on both sides of the central hallway
with bedrooms upstairs and a crosswing kitchen, with a
large (still visible) oven, projecting from the back.
Its symmetrical facade with boxed cornices and gable end
returns followed the Greek Revival style popular with
early Mormon builders.
During pioneer times the Chase Home was considered a
great "out-of-town" place for entertainment. Visitors
came by on horseback in the summer and by sled in the
winter for afternoon teas with lively conversation and
fine organ music. On many evenings the kitchen would become
a dance hall where neighbors gathered to dance a Cotillion
or a Scottish Reel to the sweet sounds of oldtime fiddle
music. The home was a favorite destination for Brigham
Young and his associates, and many stories have been handed
down about the wonderful parties that took place in this
beautiful structure.
For nearly three decades the Brigham Young Mill produced
flour and the Isaac Chase Home provided shelter for the
Chase family, the family of Brigham Young Jr. and for
subsequent millers and their families. The partnership
between Chase and Young appears to have ended by 1860,
and the mill ceased operating in the late 1870s. After
Brigham Young's death the Mill Farm became city property
and in 1883 was opened for public use as Liberty Park.
During the next century the Chase Home housed city employees,
provided office and display space for the Daughters of
Utah Pioneers and ultimately became the home of the Utah
Arts Council's Folk Arts Program and the State Folk Art
Collection. In the year 2000, a major renovation took
place to preserve this historic property and ensure its
continued enjoyment and use by the public.
Today, just like during pioneer times, the Chase Home
is a beautiful place where people go to enjoy each other
and their own creativity. It is filled with the art of
everyday people from their handmade rugs to
their music and dance. And just as people gathered nearly
150 years ago to dance, listen to the lively music and
share the joys of family and community, the Chase Home
is still a gathering place where people from all communities
come together to share the beauty of each other's traditional
arts.
Chase/Young Farm & Mills
Map
courtesy of Larry Clarkson |
Within a year of settlement, the
Salt Lake Valley was surveyed, families were assigned
individual plots of land and Chase was given the five-acre
plot on which his first sawmill was located. Young came
to control all of the remaining ninety-five acres in
that section and he built several mills there, including
ones for carding and threshing, creating what was later
recognized as one of the first industrial complexes
in the valley. The section was farmed and overseen by
Chase and commonly called either the Mill Farm, or the
Locust Patch, a reference to the black locust trees
Chase planted with seeds he transported from the East.
Though a formal partnership between Chase and Young
wasn't recorded until 1854, Chase had been farming on
Young's land and Young's mill building crew had worked
on Chase's flour mill well before then, suggesting that
their partnership in the farm and mill had begun several
years earlier.
