Park (Rio Grande) Hotel

When the great railroad depots rose on the west side, a working district grew up around them — and its workers needed cheap beds. The Park Hotel, built in 1911 just after the Rio Grande and Union Pacific stations, was the first hotel by the Rio Grande Depot: shops and a cafe below, plain rooms above, put up by the prominent firm of Ware and Treganza. It housed the blue-collar men — many of them immigrants — who ran the trains, worked the factories, and built the city. Modest as it was, it began a whole type of building.

What the plaque says

The Park Hotel is significant for its association with the early 20th-century development of Salt Lake City’s transportation and industrial district. Built immediately after the completion of the nearby Rio Grande and Union Pacific railroad stations (both built in 1909-10), the Park Hotel provided housing and services for blue collar workers, many of them ethnic immigrants, employed in local transportation, manufacturing, commercial, and construction enterprises. Designed by Ware and Treganza, one of Utah's most prominent architectural firms, and constructed in 1911, the Park Hotel was the first hotel erected near the Rio Grande Depot. With shops and cafe on the first level and residential rooms on the second level, the Park Hotel was modest in size and design, yet it was one of the first of a soon-popular building type. Over the next few years, several other hotels were constructed to the east along 300 South, producing something of a "hotel row." Following World War II the name was changed to the Rio Grande Hotel. It continues its historic function as a single room occupancy hotel.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Square — 0.8 mi
  The spiritual and architectural heart of Salt Lake City
• Salt Lake City — 0.8 mi
  Utah's capital and largest city — where the Wasatch Range meets the Great Salt Lake.
• Liberty Park — 1.9 mi
  Salt Lake Citys beloved 80-acre urban park since 1882
• Ensign Peak — 2.1 mi
  A short hike to the spot where Brigham Young surveyed the valley

More markers nearby

• Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Station — steps away
• Henderson Block — steps away
• First Pioneer Fort in Valley PTLA #23 — steps away
• Pioneer Square — steps away