City & County Building Restoration

By the 1980s, Salt Lake's grand old sandstone city hall was crumbling, and some wanted it torn down. Instead the city spent three years and thirty million dollars saving it—and in the process did something no one had done before. Sitting on the Wasatch Fault, the building was lifted onto 440 pads of steel and rubber, so that in an earthquake the ground can move while the building stays put. It was the first historic structure in the world retrofitted with base isolation, a Salt Lake experiment now copied around the globe.

What the plaque says

Tour Stop 30 Salt Lake City & County Building 1891-1894, Monheim, Bird, & Proudfoot The Salt Lake City & County Building is one of Salt Lake City's most beloved landmarks. The building is Utah's finest example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. Numerous detailed carvings, including Indian chiefs, Spanish explorers, and the faces of the first Mormon women to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley, decorate the building's exterior. Columbia, a personification of the United States, crowns the clock tower. During the late 1980s, Salt Lake City undertook a major renovation of the building. It now sits on 440 base isolators which will allow the building to move as a whole during an earthquake. This seismic retrofit project received international attention for pioneering the use of base isolators in historic buildings.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Salt Lake City — 0.8 mi
  Utah's capital and largest city — where the Wasatch Range meets the Great Salt Lake.
• Temple Square — 0.8 mi
  The spiritual and architectural heart of Salt Lake City
• Liberty Park — 1.2 mi
  Salt Lake Citys beloved 80-acre urban park since 1882
• Gilgal Sculpture Garden — 1.5 mi
  A surreal and eccentric sculpture garden hidden in a residential neighborhood

More markers nearby

• Original Salt Lake City & County Building — steps away
• Salt Lake City and County Building — steps away
• Pioneer Camping Grounds — steps away
• Salt Lake Stock & Mining Exchange Building — 0.2 mi