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(Photograph by Ntsimp)
This meetinghouse is located in the small farming community of Spring City in central Utah. It was built between 1898 and 1902, half a century after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began its territorial expansion into the land of the Ute people. Bishop James A. Allred, founding father of the town, commissioned English-born Richard C. Watkins (1858–1941) to design the building. Watkins was also working on the Spring City School at the time of this commission. Together with master stoneworker Jens “Rock” Sorensen, carpenter Emil Erickson, and Scandinavian masons John F. Bohlin, Jens J. Carlson, and Lars Larsen, Watkins rendered the Spring City Ward House in a Gothic vocabulary.
The exterior is constructed of rough-hewn oolitic limestone, with pointed arch openings and stepped buttresses that frame the entrance beneath a steepled tower. The interior of the rectangular building features plastered walls, custom wood benches from Dinwoody’s Furniture in Salt Lake City, and a simple oak pulpit and altar. Dark-stained wood rafters and a handcrafted staircase leading to the upper U-shaped gallery display the European craftsmanship of its builders.
In the 1970s, a cultural hall annex with additional rooms was built on the north side, perpendicular to the existing chapel. Its historicist detailing harmonized with Watkin’s work by using the same native limestone, window detailing, rooflines, and plaster ribbons.