Municipal Building - Price UT
Description
The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded half the cost of the handsome Municipal Building in Price UT, constructed in 1938-39. The building includes city offices, a large auditorium and an enormous mural cycle by native son Lynn Fausett in the foyer of the auditorium.
The design is minimalist Neoclassical Moderne clad in desert-buff brick. The city offices have been completely altered, but the foyer with its murals and the auditorium with its wooden seats with streamline sidebars (photos below) are both still intact.
The cornerstone attributes the building to the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (the formal name for the PWA). The building is a Utah State Historic Site, marked by an informative plaque. Oddly, the plaque confuses the PWA with the WPA (which paid for the murals but not the building) and calls the WPA the “Works Progress Association“.
A WPA/Federal Arts Project painting, “In the Swing” by Paul Smith, hangs in the reception office.
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Side entrance to foyer and auditorium Municipal Building - Price UT
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Utah state marker, Municipal Building - Price UT
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Cornerstone, Municipal Building - Price UT
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Price Municipal Building in 1939 - Price UT
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Back of 1939 photo of Auditorium entrance, Side entrance, Price Municipal Building - Price UT
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Auditorium entrance, Price Municipal Building - Price UT
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Back of 1939 photo of Municipal Building - Price UT
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Foyer with murals, Municipal Building - Price UT
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Auditorium interior, Municipal Building - Price UT
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Auditorium interior, Municipal Building - Price UT
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"In the Swing" by Paul Smith, hanging in city offices, Municipal Building - Price
Project Details
Federal Cost | Local Cost | Total Cost | Project #'s |
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90000 | 85000 | 175000 |
Source notes
Utah State Historic marker on site
Building cornerstone
Project originally submitted by Brent McKee on July 27, 2015.
Additional contributions by Joan Greer.
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