At Park City’s first Historic Preservation Month celebration May 8, upbeat music played at the McPolin Barn and visitors snacked on mining-themed goodies while learning about efforts to preserve community history.
Barbara Martz is on the Park City Museum Board. She said events like Friday’s foster connection.
“I like to be places where I can feel the history. That people were here before, people walked this ground, people worked here, people lived and died here,” she said. “That's important to me to have that connection to wherever I go.”
Martz said preservation draws people back to an area. For example, the historic Glenwood Cemetery was in a state of disrepair for decades until volunteers started work in the 1980s to bring it back to life. Martz was involved in some of those efforts, including funding headstone restorations and gathering the stories of those buried there.
Now, families are coming back to the cemetery to decorate graves or find relatives long gone.
Martz said it was also great to see the McPolin barn open after years of being boarded up.
“We would peek in windows where we could, but they were pretty much fogged up and dirty and boarded as well,” she said. “It's such a thrill to see that it's been preserved. Now you can walk in and step back in time to see what it was like when they were kind of a dairy farm going here in the ‘20s.”
The Silver King Colation Mine Building restoration project — near Park City Mountain’s Bonanza chairlift — got a lot of attention at the event as well.
After a multi-year effort to save the historic building from collapse, the project received Preservation Utah's rehabilitation and restoration award. The Park City Historic Preservation Board also honored the project with the Cindy Matsumoto Historic Preservation award, which recognizes exceptional preservation work within the city’s Historic District.
MORE: $1.6M Silver King Coalition Mine project wins Preservation Utah award
Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History, a volunteer committee of the Park City Museum, headed the effort to save Silver King. Project manager Brian Buck said it took five years and $1.6 million to save the building.
“Multiple generations of Park City family names worked in these mines, and so when I'm doing this work to stabilize these mines, I'm thinking of those families,” he said.
Work is ongoing to restore the Thaynes Mine, which has a ski industry history as well. Buck said the Treasure Mountain Resort — now Park City Mountain — first hauled skiers to the top of the mountain using mining tunnels.
Buck said locals and visitors can experience the mines as they once were through guided tours starting on Miners Day this year.
As part of Historic Preservation Month, Buck will give a free lecture on 10 years of historic preservation projects at the Park City Library May 13 at 5 p.m.
