Old Town Park City Homes

158 Main

Tax Photo - circa 1930s

Recent Photo

Built in 1886 probably by Joseph Webber who sold it in the 1890s to Annie and William Reynolds.  The Reynolds  moved to Juneau Territory, Alaska and sold the house to George and Lucy R. Garvin for $600 in 1901.  George and Mary had four children, Mary was from New York, her parents from Ireland.  George died in 1902 in the Daly West mine explosion (see attached “Way We Were” article.  He worked at the Ontario mine and died from the poison gasses that traveled through the connecting tunnels from the Daly West.  He left this home to his wife along with a house on Prospect Ave and 156 shares of the Valeo Mining Company.  Mary continued to live in the home with her youngest son Charles Elwood until 1924 when she sold the property to Mary Giacoma for $1,000.  Mary probably never lived in the house and actually sold it to Mae E. Matheson a year later for $10.00. 

M. N. & Mae Matheson emigrated from Nova Scotia in 1890 with their only son Arthur.  Arthur followed his father’s footsteps, working as a miner in the Creole, Daly and Ontario mines, where he contracted tuberculosis.  Suffering he moved his mother and wife, Margaret and three children Charlotte May, Margarita Ann and Arthur Nimmo, to Los Angeles in 1917.  In 1920 they returned and Arthur ran for sheriff on the Democratic Ticket.  He died suddenly in December, only 35 years old. Margaret, though well provided for, took a job at Welsh Driscoll & Bucks store on Main Street and even served two terms as city treasurer.  Mae died in 1926 leaving her daughter-in-law and grandchildren an estate worth $22,000, including homes at 133, 166 &158 Main Street, 245 Woodside, 144 shares in the Park Utah Consolidated Mining Company. The house was probably rented .

Charlotte married George Barben and they sold the house in 1939. 

In 1996 Jerry Smith, the current owner, purchased the house.

This is a typical hall-parlor, two rooms wide and one room deep with shed extension to the rear.  They replaced the single room log cabins of the 1870s and was the first major house type that appeared in great numbers in Park City.  With origins in England, this type of small house was widely accepted in the United States and especially in Park City with its abundance of English, Irish and Scottish immigrants.

The original two-room floor plan is reflected by the asymmetrical facade.  The offset door suggests two similar rooms, a plan that differs from the typical Park City Hall/parlor type house where the hall is the larger square room an the parlor, serving as the best room, is attached to the side.