When surveyor William M. Lemon and chainman Peter W. Conover began laying out Provo City’s Plat A in 1850, they drove the first stake in the center of the town square — the block now known as Pioneer Park.

It was the center of the first town plat, which the surveyors laid out in 11 square blocks. Pioneer leaders intended the square to serve as the center of the community’s business, religious and social life.

In a sense, it was meant to be Provo’s front yard.

When Provo’s settlers began to move out of the second fort that had served as their initial home, many acquired homesites in Plat A. Businessmen followed. Some of them set up shop on Center Street near the town square, or on Main Street, the busy thoroughfare that is now 500 West.

North of the square, Bishop Elias H. Blackburn built his home near the corner of 600 West and Center Street. East of Blackburn and fronting 500 West, Shadrack Holdaway constructed a carding mill.

Water was power in those days, and water in what residents later called the Fifth West Ditch drove the mill. Today, with the exception of a small stretch of open water along the east side of Pioneer Park, the ditch is covered, conveying its water to Provo Bay via cement pipe.

On the corner of Center Street and 500 West, Harlow Redfield built a hotel that catered to travelers. In the mid-1850s, Redfield sold the place to Isaac Bullock, and the building remained in use until 1907, when workmen razed the large, two-story, adobe building to make way for Electa Bullock’s modern home.

South of the hotel, Andrew Jackson Stewart Sr. built a two-story adobe structure. It served both as a store and a home for his family.

Near the square, townsmen also constructed buildings that served the community. Following the instructions of Mormon Apostle George A. Smith, early settlers dismantled the large, log schoolhouse in the fort and reconstructed it north of the town square. They enlarged the structure by adding extensions on each side. The finished building took the form of a Greek cross 60 feet long and 50 feet wide. Citizens held school, church, court, civic meetings and dances in the remodeled structure.

Tithing office

Bishop Blackburn supervised the construction of an adobe tithing office across the street south of the square. Blackburn and his clerks oversaw the collection of tithes, which were usually paid “in kind” — that is, in commodities rather than cash — because of the scarcity of hard money. Those in charge of the tithing office stored eggs, butter, cheese, crops and livestock inside the building or on the grounds.

Loyal church members also donated some of their tithing through labor. On the town square, men working off their labor tithe constructed a large bowery — an open-air meeting hall with a flat roof covered with boughs and vines to provide shade. During warm weather, people attended church meetings there. Occasionally, even during cool weather, crowded meetings in the enlarged log schoolhouse were delayed while overflow crowds moved across the street to the bowery, where the meeting resumed.

Some of the LDS Church’s most illustrious leaders, including Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, George A. Smith and John Taylor, spoke in this humble structure.

Early in 1852, Brigham Young had appointed George A. Smith to preside over the settlement at Provo. In July of that year, a special conference took place in Provo’s bowery on the town square. During one of the meetings, Provo was divided into four ecclesiastical wards and George A. Smith announced the names of the four bishops who were to lead them.

Soon after Smith took the responsibility of supervising the development of Provo, he presided over the dedication of a building site for Provo’s first permanent church building or tabernacle. He selected a site for the building on the town square. Church architect Truman O. Angell furnished the plans for the edifice.

On Monday, Aug. 16, 1852, a group of Mormon men met on the town square and measured an 80-by-40-foot plot of land which was to be used for the Provo Meeting House. That evening at 6:00, a crowd assembled to witness the dedication of the site.

Historical Records and Minutes of Provo Stake show that the dedicatory meeting opened with a hymn sung by the “Quoir.” After the musical selection ended, George A. Smith offered the dedicatory prayer.

Then Smith called for the oldest man present to come forward and break the ground. John Elmore, “whose silver locks had grue’d many a hoary frost,” trundled forward and took the spade. “In the midst of a gazing multitude,” Elmore turned a shovelful of earth near the southeast corner of the contemplated building. Then the choir sang another hymn, and Smith closed the meeting with prayer.

Men armed with shovels and picks soon began excavating on the meetinghouse site, and the Minutes of Provo Stake record that by early October excavators had produced “the largest cellar in this city and probably in the Territory.” Then work slowed, and for the next three years, builders made little progress.

Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and other church leaders attended another special conference in Provo during July 1855. Young and Kimball spoke at meetings in the bowery. Kimball announced that the present townsite of Provo was about a half mile west of where Young had instructed the settlers to establish it six years earlier.

When Young spoke, he chastised the settlers for making so little progress on their meetinghouse. He likely reasoned that since little had been done, little would be lost if he changed the site of the meetinghouse and put it where he had wanted it in the first place.

On July 15, 1855, Young selected a new location for the building. He chose a plot of land five blocks east of the town square, on ground immediately north of where the current Provo Tabernacle stands.

The next day, Kimball addressed the people and encouraged them to build their homes and businesses farther east on what was known as the “bench.” This slightly elevated area began with the Stansbury Level left by prehistoric Lake Bonneville at approximately 200 West. From there, higher land extended east to the base of the mountains.

In yet another meeting later that afternoon, Provo Stake President James C. Snow put the matter of moving the meetinghouse before the people. In typical Mormon style, they unanimously agreed with the idea.

In his journal entry of July 16, 1855, Jonathan Oldham Duke, the recently appointed bishop of Provo First Ward, summarized the conference in the following words:

“We have had for the last days a Meeting held in the Bowery [at] Provo The first Presidency and Several of the 12 and Joseph Young in attendance it has been a glorious meeting oh that the Saints in Provo would practice the rich Council we have received at which meeting Br J. C. Snow Chose his Councillors Brs Dominicus Carter & James N. Jones Some little opposition manifested [It wouldn’t have been typical of early Provo if there had been no opposition.] President Young yesterday Changed the Location of the Provo Meeting house to the Block where Br Miller lives.”

Young’s selection of a new meetinghouse site and Kimball’s encouragement of people to build their homes eastward resulted in the gradual expansion of the city eastward. Most of the important community buildings were eventually established in that part of town. East Main Street (now University Avenue) was laid out, and 500 West became known as West Main Street. The block where the historic Utah County Courthouse is located (across the street from the Tabernacle) became East Square, and the settlers now referred to Pioneer Park as West Square.

Filling the hole

Provo’s church authorities ordered “the largest cellar in this city and probably in the Territory” to be back-filled, and no trace exists today. If the intended location of the meetinghouse on West Square were similar to the location of the first meetinghouse that rose on the current tabernacle block, the excavation would have been near the center of the block from east to west. It would have sat back from the road quite a distance. If this supposition is correct, the excavation would have been located just north of where the picnic pavilion now stands in Pioneer Park. It is almost certain that the architect would have intended the building to face Center Street.

After the hole was filled, the town square remained a rather dry, common-looking place until the late 1870s, when the city began to make improvements. The square’s most notable feature was a large flagpole that citizens erected in 1852. William Strong made a tin ball that was placed on the top of this pole — dubbed the “Liberty Pole” — which served as the rendezvous point for the local militia when called out to quell Indian hostilities or on other notable events.

One such occasion was Dec. 4, 1857, when Colonel William B. Pace, his officers and 164 men assembled near the Liberty Pole. They had just returned from Echo Canyon, east of Salt Lake City, where they had built fortifications against the arrival of Johnston’s Army, a force of U.S. soldiers sent to Utah by President James Buchanan to put down a supposed Mormon rebellion.

Apostle Smith, Stake President Snow, Bishop Blackburn and others received the local militia with a hero’s welcome. The men formed a hollow square and leaders made patriotic speeches to welcome them back. Then the officers dismissed the men to return to their homes.

One of the soldiers at this gathering was a prisoner of war, Charles Wilkins. Handcart pioneer Albert Jones described Wilkins as “a fine handsome young Soldier of the invading Army.” Later the prisoner was apparently repatriated, but he stayed in Utah when Johnston and his army went east for the Civil War. Wilkins married a Utah woman, and some of their children intermarried with the children of George Q. Cannon.

In June 1860, citizens removed the original Liberty Pole, and L. John Nuttall built a pretentiously tall double pole. He placed the large tin ball that had crowned the old pole on the top of the new one. Henry White made iron fittings. Nuttall and his father, William, helped raise the pole in preparation for that year’s Fourth of July celebration.

When it came time to raise the flag, a force of men that was for many years directed by John R. Goodman, a former sailor, lowered the upper section of the new pole, attached the flag, then raised the pole again. This high double pole raised the standard high above Provo for all to see.

Rise and Fall

This second Liberty Pole stood for more than 30 years until, in early December 1892, city workmen toppled it. The Deseret Evening News reported that “Its base had entirely rotted away, and it had become a constant menacing danger to passersby; a few props were all that held it in place.”

Men once again removed the tin ball from the top. This time, however, it was not returned to the crest of another flagpole. It had served a term of 50 years in all kinds of weather and was now moved inside and protected. Educators interested in Provo’s heritage put the ball on display in the pioneer relic room of the old Provo High School. Later, the ball came into the possession of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, and it is currently on display at the DUP Museum in North Park on 500 West.

For many decades now, no LDS Church president has spoken in what we currently call Pioneer Park. No citywide religious services have been held there. Provo’s National Guard units have not assembled around the current flagpole for drills.

Yet the park remains a popular place for those who have no yard of their own, and even for many who do. Families go for picnics, and large groups assemble under the pavilion. Children amuse themselves on the playground equipment, or in hot weather splash in one of the last remaining open sections of the Fifth West Ditch. Each summer the Provo Arts Council provides youngsters with a day of fun with art in the park.

Pioneer Park once served as Provo’s front yard. Through the years, its purpose changed. The park still belongs to the people, but now it serves as our back yard.

D. Robert Carter is a historian from Springville. He can be reached at 489-8256. His new book, “Founding Fort Provo,” is available at local bookstores or from the author.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B4.

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