Events, Activities, and Entertainment Venues in Salt Lake County, Utah, Including Salt Lake City, Sandy, Draper, South Jordan, Herriman, Murray, West Valley, West Jordan, and all cities in Salt Lake County.
The Salt Lake City Union Pacific Depot is a spacious building located in the new Gateway District, next to the Jazz Basketball Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. Built from 1908 to 1909 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Originally called the Union Station, it was jointly constructed by the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad and the Oregon Short Line, both later wholly owned by the Union Pacific at an estimated cost of $450,000. Both railroads’ initials were prominently displayed on the front of the building.
The sandstone building is constructed in the French Second Empire style and includes a terrazzo floor and stained glass windows. One ceiling mural by San Francisco artist Harry Hopp depicts the driving of the Golden Spike north of Salt Lake City at “Promontory Summit,” signifying the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Another mural by San Francisco artist John McQuarrie shows the 1847 arrival of Mormon pioneers to what is now Salt Lake City.
Several side rooms were originally used for separate male and female waiting areas. The depot once housed an emergency hospital, lunchroom, baggage rooms, and offices for both of the original railroads.
In January 2006, three floors of the old Union Pacific depot re-opened as a restaurant and music venue fittingly called The Depot. The Depot brings a wide variety of musical talent to Salt Lake City.
The Utah Cultural Celebration Center is dedicated to enriching and strengthening communities by promoting the expression of the arts, education, opportunities for economic development, and the celebration of human diversity.
The center is committed to:
The preservation and perpetuation of cultural traditions
Creating a setting for cultural exchange and experience
Promoting the visual and performing arts as well as the humanities
Encouraging education through creative thinking and experiential learning
Enhancing opportunities for economic development
Providing a social infrastructure for networking within the community
Establishing a ‘home’ for diverse artistic achievement.
The Center is designed to strengthen a sense of unity among the people of the Wasatch Front by highlighting cultural wealth and creativity and offering a forum to celebrate our residents’ talents in music, dance, performance, and visual arts. Providing a place where family and friends can come together, and where cultural arts are nurtured, promoted, and celebrated.
Intended from the beginning as the Western counterpart to Coney Island, Saltair was one of the first amusement parks, and for a time was the most popular family destination west of New York. The first Saltair pavilion and a few other buildings were destroyed by fire on April 22, 1925. A new pavilion was built and the resort was expanded at the same location by new investors, but several factors prevented the second Saltair from achieving the success of its ancestor.
The advent of motion pictures and radio, the Great Depression, and the interruption of the “go to Saltair” routine kept people closer to home. With a huge new dance floor – the world’s largest at the time – Saltair became more known as a dance palace, the amusement park becoming secondary to the great traveling bands of the day, such as Glenn Miller.
As Utah’s premier venue for contemporary art, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art is alive with activity: exhibitions, films, conversations with artists, community projects, a new Locals Only Gallery, live performances, a cafe, an art shop–and more!
Google Street View–Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
The Table Tennis Training and Event Center is the largest, full-service table tennis (ping pong) facility in Salt Lake City. It not only services the Salt Lake metro area but all of Utah, the Wasatch Front, and the Inter-mountain West.
The state-of-the-art facility includes coaching, leagues, tournaments, incentives, memberships, and corporate programs.
The formal performance space in the Marriott Center for Dance, The Hayes Christensen Theatre, was named in honor of Elizabeth R. Hayes and William Christensen, in recognition of their outstanding contributions to dance and the University of Utah.
The 333-seat professional theatre, shared by the Departments of Modern Dance and Ballet, has 14 rows of seating steeply raked to permit all audience members an excellent view. On stage left is a quick change room, restroom, and a ballet barre with an electric-radiant panel to warm dancers’ legs and feet.
Versatile yet intimate theatre can accommodate various live and unique performances. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
The Hayes Christensen Theatre has hosted lectures, conventions, lunch meetings, auditions, rehearsals, concerts, and live events, to name a few. In addition to the Theatre, The Marriott Center for Dance has space and studios to accommodate every activity.
The Draper Historic Theatre has strong cultural and historical significance to the community. In 1938, Annie Pearl and John A. Howell family built a movie house named “The Pearl.” Vaudeville performances would start off the evening, followed by a movie or two. Many locals felt fortunate to have a first-run theatre right in their small town.
For many generations, this building, now on the Draper Historic Register, served as a gathering place for the south end of the valley. In 1988, the theater was purchased by Charles and Vanessa Nelson, who added theatrical lighting, and sound and expanded the stage, enabling the presentation of live shows. With humble beginnings, DHT grew into what could be called “the best-kept secret in the valley.” Ten years later, DHT became a non-profit organization, and in 2004 the Board of Directors purchased the building from the Nelsons through a major fundraising effort. Having the organization purchase the building allows for the theater to truly belong to the Draper community.
Located in the grand lobby of the old Rio Grande Depot, the Rio Gallery was established as a service to Utah artists, providing a free venue for emerging as well as established artists to gather and educate the community through their artwork.
Rio Grande Depot History
It was a busy place – with the huffing of locomotives pulling in and out, the echoing hubbub of the grand lobby, steps hurrying across the marble floor, the calls of baggage handlers, passengers at the ticket counter, people chatting in the coffee shop.
Built for $750,000, the depot was the main jewel of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad—and a worthy challenge to new Union Pacific Depot, which cost a mere $300,000. Railroads were big business in those days. And a fierce competition raged between the D&RGW’s George Gould and UP’s E. H. Harriman.
The main Rio Grande line ran to Denver through Carbon County and Grand Junction. Spur lines ran to several mining areas and to Ogden. But the Union Pacific controlled the rail traffic to the Pacific. So George Gould decided to build his own line to San Francisco. He succeeded, but the line cost twice as much as he had planned–$75 million—and sucked his family’s fortune dry. He lost his railroad empire shortly after.
