Teachers’ Duplex Houses – Copperton UT

Description

Housing of teachers had been a long-term problem at Bingham High School in the remote mining town of Copperton, Utah. School district policy required teachers live within the boundaries of the school at which they taught and teachers could not rent the company homes in Copperton which were reserved for copper miners. A small apartment building had been previously built next to the high school, but the three-room units were inadequate for teachers with families. Thus in 1939 two duplex houses ($21,000 total) were funded as part of a $151,000 WPA application for improvements to the Jordan School District buildings. The application also included a retaining wall at Bingham Central school, enlarging the Copperfield school basement, repairing several schools’ roofs, and construction of tennis courts and playground equipment at various schools.

The two duplexes are identified as Contributing Structures on the 1986 nomination of the Copperton Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. They are now private residences.