The Pagoda

In 1902, an area of Salt Lake City, Utah, near City Creek Canyon, was set aside for a park and this area would become Memory Grove Park in the 1920s when the Salt Lake chapter of the Service Star Legion, a national patriotic organization for women whose relatives had served in the First World War, asked the city to use the space to honor America's soldiers.  In addition to the planting of trees, memorials were to be added to the park.

The first structure in the park was a circular memorial that strangely became known as the Pagoda.  This classic structure is composed of eight Doric columns which support an entablature.  An octagonal shaft and urn honoring Salt Lake City's fallen soldiers of World War I was added in 1932.  The marble for the memorial came from the same quarry in Vermont which provided the marble for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  The Pagoda, as well as the Memory Grove entrance gates, were designed by Salt Lake City architect Slack Winburn.

On June 28, 2012, my wife and I visited Memory Grove Park on the occasion of our 21st wedding anniversary.  We were spending the day in Salt Lake and my wife suggested that we visit the park; it was a warm and beautiful day, and the park had many visitors.  This visit was my first in many years.  The last time I had visited Memory Park it was still a Grove.

In August 1999, a tornado ripped through Salt Lake City and felled many of the trees in Memory Grove.  The park was restored by thousands of volunteers and several partners, including Salt Lake City, the Memory Grove Foundation, Utah Heritage Foundation, FEMA, the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, Salt Lake County, Tree Utah, and the Forest Service.  Memory Park was made beautifal again, though there are not nearly as many trees as there once were.

The photo above was the best shot of the day.  I saw he blue sky and clouds through the circular opening and thought it would make a good picture.  Here are some more photos that I took that day of the Pagoda: