West Jordan Journal Articles

The West Jordan Historical Museum News.  

 The West Jordan Historical Museum is very grateful to all who have visited the museum during the winter months. We appreciate you taking the time to fight the snow, wind and rain to make your visits. 

 We are currently asking residents of West Jordan, especially those who families were among the original pioneers who founded West Jordan, to submit family histories for our new library and research center that will be opening soon. We are looking for genealogy, family stories, photograph, newspaper clippings, and information on old West Jordan business, especially the Lucky Penny Café, The Redwood Inn, and the Butterworth’s meat market. Information on early organizations including Lions Club, Rotary, churches, and anything that has to do with West Jordan History. Records and photographs can be scanned at the museum. 

 We were recently visited by the president of the Archibald Gardner Camp of the DUP who discovered a fantastic historical find. Several old scrapbooks which were kept by members of the DUP which included tons of newspaper clippings concerning the DUP, West Jordan, Salt Lake City and much more from about the 1930’s on up. We are hoping to find more of these types of family scrapbooks and such to add to our files. If you can help, please do. 

 During the month of February, the West Jordan Museum lost one of their biggest supporters. We were saddened to hear about the passing of Deck Hunter. Deck was a great man with a heart of gold. Deck and his wife Judy were the first to bring artifacts to the museum which gave our displays a kick start. Dick was generous with his time as he was in ill health, but didn’t loose his enthusiasm for the museum. He would bring items over and talk about them. He looked over some of our other items and was able to help us identify them. Deck and Judy brought many ideas to help the museum along. After his passing, we learned that he had left all his pocket change to the museum, which turned out to be a “lot” of pocket change he had stashed in jars, wine bottles and other containers for about 30 years. We thank the generosity of both Deck and Judy Hunter for their support of the museum. We will miss Deck. We are using the money we received from Deck and Judy to finish the garage into a display area where many of Dick’s tools will be on display for all to enjoy.

 There are three Eagle Scout projects in progress at the museum. One is finishing the floor in the basement so our library can be set up. The other is getting the stairs ready with handrails and other safety items so the stairs can be traversed safely. The other is texturing the ceiling in the Cottage Inn kitchen, the storage room repairing walls, painting and repairing the kitchen cabinets by building new drawers. We are looking for a replacement cast iron sink. Please let us know if you run across one that will fit. We are hopinn to ready the Cottage Inn for a ribbon cutting opening by the fourth of July during our ice cream social.

 Thank you for your support. Admission to the museum is free but we do accept donations. If you would like to be a volunteer at our upcoming Ice Cream Social on the Fourth of July or the Annual Pumpkin Walk on the third Saturday of October, please let us know. Businesses in West Jordan are invited to become involved in these yearly events. For more information, volunteering special tours, please give us a call at 255-3116 or 403-9030. For museum hours call 568-0938.