Fairmont Park – Salt Lake City UT

Description

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped create the old Forest Dale city park in the Sugarhouse section of southern Salt Lake City UT in 1935-37. The name was later changed to Fairmont Park (the adjoining Forest Dale golf course kept the old name).

The park has been renovated and altered in recent years, especially the addition of a pond create on the little creek that runs through it (a branch of Parlays Creek), new pickleball courts, a skate park and a modern aquatic center.  But elements of the WPA-built park remain, including, no doubt, many of the old trees.

At the northeast corner of the park is a stone barbeque fireplace and seating, a park office building in craftsman style with stone pillars, and telling stonework lining the creek alongside it.  A stone wall runs the length of the east side of the park, holding up a parking area, and stone pillars mark the formal entrance.  There is another such stone entrance gate on the west side of the park at the dead-end of Simpson Avenue and more stone walls at the entrance to the west side parking area.

Both of the old entrance gates have plaques recognizing the WPA’s role, to wit: “Forest Dale Park reclaimed and built by Salt Lake City in cooperation with the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1937.”