Star Market & Grocery

For a thousand dollars, just after the 1898 fire, George Smith put up this false-fronted store — the very picture of a mining-town shop — and stocked the meat and groceries Park City had until then bought from Heber merchants. Smith, later the town's mayor, ran it as the "Smith & Brim" market with a partner, and one of Main Street's first electric signs lit it in 1903. When Smith died, his clerk George Hoover bought the store, painted a star over the old sign, and made it the Star. The building still stands on Main.

What the plaque says

Built for $1000 shortly after the 1898 fire, this is a false front, one story commercial structure very typical of mining town architecture of its day. The southern section was built first; the northern section was added twenty years later. One of Main Street's first electric signs was installed here in 1903. Original proprietor George Smith moved here from Heber City to open a butcher shop in this building. Until that time Park City's groceries, meat and produce were supplied by Heber merchants. Smith, who later became mayor, formed a partnership with Alonzo Brim, and thus the "Smith & Brim" meat market was established. When Smith died, his employee George Hoover bought the business, painted a star over the Smith & Brim sign, and renamed the market "Star Meat & Grocery". Subsequent owners Waldo Thompson and Wendell Paulsen continued the business until the 1950's, when the doors were closed and the building vacated. In 1963 Ed and Roslyn Grose purchased the building and for nearly two decades displayed and sold antiques and Park City memorabilia. In 1982 new owners founded the fine art and folk craft gallery occupying the building at present.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Park City — steps away
  Silver built it. Snow saved it.
• Park City Main Street — steps away
  A historic mining town turned world-class ski and film festival destination
• Park City Mountain — 0.7 mi
  The largest ski resort in the United States, grown straight out of a 19th-century silver town.
• Deer Valley — 1.5 mi
  A ski-only luxury resort above Park City, now in the middle of the largest expansion in U.S. ski history.

More markers nearby

• St. Luke's Episcopalian Church (2) Markers — steps away
• Summit County Sheriff's Office — steps away
• "Ten O'Clock Whistle" and Old Public Library — steps away
• Park City, City Hall (2) Markers — steps away