When I was a child, I loved visiting Disneyland, and especially the ride The Haunted Mansion. Though the ghosts and ghouls were morbidly fascinating, I was more interested in the old antebellum home they inhabited. I loved the towering roman columns, ample porches, sweeping staircases, and cavernous basement. Animated by the curiosity of youth, I found myself speculating about the backstory of the specters that inhabited the house and wondered why they remained there? Were they forbidden from leaving? Were they upset that we were touring their house? Despite these unanswered questions, I found myself wanting to live in this venerable mansion — I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a house in which you could be transported from room to room in levitating chairs?
I think what I sensed from a young age is that physical structures such as houses tell us about the dead even as they protect and sustain the living. The 2017 film A Ghost Story depicted a recently deceased husband returning to the home he had shared with his wife as she moves forward with her life. Far from a horror story, it was a touching meditation on loss, love, and connection to place. In one scene, the ghost remembers his wife telling him, “When I was little and we used to move all the time, I’d write these notes, and I would fold them up really small, and I would hide them in secret places around the house. These were things I wanted to remember, so that if I ever wanted to go back, there’d be a piece of me waiting.” (A Ghost Story, directed by David Lowery, featuring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, 2017.) The wife’s childhood gesture reflects how we as human beings feel about the places in which we live — homes are sites where we create and store memories that keep us rooted and connected to each other.
My point in telling tales of ghosts is that houses tell stories about people long gone. I was raised in a red-brick home built in 1892 — the old Duke home. That old house was filled with memories long before my family purchased it in the 1970s. I’ve lived in that place for over thirty-four years now, and it is part of me. I grew up to be a historian who researches old manuscripts, but buildings are also repositories of the past. If we listen carefully, these structures whisper tales of human aspiration, toil, and legacy. Many of the historic homes in Heber City were constructed by migrants who fled discrimination and sought a place of refuge and liberty; others by those seeking economic self-sufficiency through farming, ranching, and mining. They built homesteads with their own hands using local timber, clay, and stone, and filled them with life. If these old structures had eyes and ears — or even ghosts — they have witnessed countless births, family celebrations, and holiday gatherings; sacrifice and death. These memories are forever enshrined within their hallowed walls.
So, what obligation do we as citizens of this community have to these people and the edifices they built? Houses chronicle the lives of past occupants, yes, but the preservation of those buildings tell us something imperative about the living. Whether you’ve lived in Heber City your whole life or migrated here from someplace else, each of us understands that this place is special. We have each chosen to put down roots here because we value this valley’s physical beauty and sense of community. That community is founded on a shared or adopted past and the willingness to sacrifice for a brighter future.
Urban development is coming to Heber City as assuredly as it has to countless other places in the American West. You know the pattern: construct buildings using the cheapest materials, and then, when they decay, tear them down and build the next big thing. Because new is always better, right? Or is it? How many of us have traveled to Europe so we can walk through iconic streets, buildings, and museums imbued with centuries of history?
Financial and culture investment in old town benefits every resident of this valley.
We cherish those places because of what those societies preserved, not what they tore down. We may not have a Roman Colosseum or Cathédrale Notre-Dame, but we do have a rich history that is no less significant. Our story is much shorter than that of Europe’s, to be sure, but even a short history is fleeting if there aren’t physical markers to give it meaning.
Though we in the valley have demonstrated a resolve to preserve some of our precious open space as a reminder of our agricultural past — and I for one hope we continue to preserve more of it — we must also think about our cultural heritage. Making our urban spaces denser can certainly alleviate some of the vexing pressures of housing scarcity, but it can also, if done without careful planning, transform a unique community into a place indistinguishable from others — anonymous and without character.
Preservation can help ameliorate some of the destructive characteristics of urban transformation. Preserving historic structures creates a tangible connection to the past but also a sense of identity and place that can define and distinguish a community. Historic districts — such as the one we are proposing to build here in Heber City — project maturity, permanence, and singularity in an ever-changing world. Historic districts also promote investment in older neighborhoods, such as the one in which most of Heber City’s historic homes are located. Here I quote a report compiled by the Salt Lake City planning division: “Studies across the nation have documented that, where local historic districts are established, property values typically appreciate, or at the very least stabilize where they might have been previously declining. In this sense, designation of a historic district appears to establish a climate for enhanced stability, civic pride, and further personal investment in the area.” (A Preservation Handbook for Historic Residential Properties & Districts in Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake City Planning Division, 11 December 2012) 1:3, slcdocs.com/historicpreservation/GuideRes/ResidentialGuidelines.pdf [accessed 9.17.2024]) In other words, financial and culture investment in old town benefits every resident of this valley.
We — as citizens of this community — are at a crossroads as we define and shape the aesthetic and cultural values of our town for generations to come.
To paraphrase novelist and historian Wallace Stegner, “something will have gone out of us as a people” if we permit the last open spaces to be developed into fast food restaurants, condominiums, and parking lots; (For Stegner’s full sentiments, see Wallace Stegner, “Coda: Wilderness Letter,” in The Sound of Mountain Water: The Changing American West (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1997), 146.) similarly, we will make ourselves culturally poor indeed if we neglect or tear down historical homes and buildings and lose our connection to the people and stories that defined this extraordinary place. Now is the time to demonstrate our commitment to creating a better future for Heber Valley. It starts by safeguarding the past.
