By: Amber Foote for Redmond’s Share The Good Column: For nearly nine decades, Salina’s brown brick library and municipal building has stood as a sentinel on Main Street—welcoming children for story hour, town leaders hashing out policy, and in years past, even the occasional prisoner cooling heels in the basement jail. A little drafty in winter and stuffy in summer, the old building evoked small-town nostalgia: the papery smell of books, warm greetings from friendly librarians, and the steady rhythm of town business in the basement. Its creaks and quirks became almost endearing—like George Bailey’s loose banister knob in It’s a Wonderful Life. The old girl had character.
Now, after 88 years of service, the building stands quiet. As demolition nears, memories echo through its empty rooms and in the minds of locals.
The library’s beginnings tie back to the struggle of the Great Depression. Utah, hit especially hard, had one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.
Constructed between 1936 and 1937, the library was one of many projects funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal program created to provide jobs and restore hope.
For Salina, the building’s construction added dignity to the town and gave employment and purpose to workers who needed it.
“It isn’t just an old building,” said Ronda Huntsman, Salina’s library director for 20 years. “A lot of historic things happened there. Just knowing those WPA workers were able to come here, have a job, build it and do such a super job—I think it’s wonderful. It’s a historical, beautiful building.”
Because of its significance, the structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Built by contractor M.W. Breinholt of Richfield, it blended Prairie School and Art Deco style in a no-nonsense design.
The rigid, rectangular form was broken up with geometric detailing at the corners, entrance, and roofline. But its most distinctive feature may be the fanned front stairs and quietly charming door with a half-moon shaped top.
“I loved the front entrance and the porch outside,” Huntsman said. “It was just elegant. The rounded door is such a contrast from the typical square shape.”
Brick-and-mortar details, however, don’t capture life lived in and around the building through nearly a century. Lifelong Salina resident Rosalind Anderson grew up alongside the 88-year-old structure. Born in 1939, she recalls when it was newly constructed.
“I remember going to the library with my family when I was maybe seven or eight,” she said. “The outside was very impressive then—it was new and beautiful. It was a place I loved, with all those books to choose from. I’d find something I liked really well for a time, like fairy
tales, and then it was on to Nancy Drew mysteries.”
The building was a loyal backdrop during the growing pains of her teenage years, too.
“Once I hid from my boyfriend on the side steps,” she recalled with a laugh. “We’d gone to a dance, but he didn’t ask me to dance, so I was mad. Afterward we went to the old Pamela Theater with friends, and as soon as the movie ended, I slipped away and hid on the library steps so he wouldn’t see me when he drove by. It was a good hiding place.”
Besides being a good hideout, the building served many roles over the course of its life. For its first four decades the basement held the police station and jail, while the east rooms on the upper floor housed the mayor’s office and council chambers. The library occupied the upper west side, and between the two main areas stood a wartime memorial: a turntable display listing the names of locals who served—and some who died—in World War II.
“I was always very interested by that,” Anderson said.
In the 1980s, the city offices moved downstairs and the police relocated down the street. The library, finally free to stretch its legs, spread across the upper floor. Alcoves and corners became book displays. The council chambers grew into a children’s reading room, and the mayor’s walk-in vault eventually filled with DVDs instead of documents.
“The twist combination lock was still on the door,” Huntsman recalled, “but it was disabled so we couldn’t lock ourselves in. They even drilled holes for air!”
As the building aged, the shapely front door grew creaky and jammed and was eventually abandoned for a back entrance. The foyer instead was lined with shelves for large-print books.
“I liked to go in that foyer and just sit and look out the window,” Huntsman said fondly. “We’d visit there a lot and talk about what was happening outside or in the library.”
The odd quirks and little nooks made it homey; and if the city offices were the brains of the old building, the library was surely the heart.
“It was kind of like going to grandma’s house,” Huntsman said. “You knew where everything was. And when people came in, they felt like they’d been there forever and we’d been friends forever. To me, that’s what really made it feel like home—just people being nice to people. It was cozy.”
Of nine WPA buildings constructed in Sevier County, Salina’s library is one of five still standing—though not for long. Mayor Jed Maxwell said the decision to demolish was not made easily.
“The building is full of mold and downstairs we had to run fans 24 hours a day to keep our records safe,” he said.
A restoration company gave the city a $1.87 million bid to restore the library and make it usable. A new building—four times the size, with room to grow—came in at $2.4 million.
“In the end, financially it just didn’t make sense to restore that old building. It’s sad to see it go down, but after almost 100 years it has run its course.”
The new library and city offices are now situated a block and a half west. And while the old structure will soon be gone, its twin can still be seen in Kanab, built in 1940 from the same WPA blueprints.
What will remain of Salina’s historic library and city building are the memories: the wartime honor roll, rousing town meetings, vaults turned into movie corners, children’s contests, a painting and pizza night, and generations of patrons who passed through its doors.
“I don’t know if I can watch when it comes down,” Huntsman admitted, “because that’s kind of tender. I’ll miss seeing it there. But I’ll remember the fun things we did—and those memories are worth everything.”
