Salt Lake City

Historic Preservation

Planning Division | (801) 535-7700 | historicpreservation@slcgov.com

Liberty Wells

Liberty Wells

The development of the Liberty Wells area occurred in fits and starts based both on land uses and technological advances elsewhere in Salt Lake City. From its beginning as an agricultural area used to support the population of the City’s downtown area to a collection of streetcar suburbs that sprang up after the extension of horse-drawn and eclectic trolley lines beyond the downtown core area of the city, ebbs and flows of Liberty Wells’ were strongly tied to outside forces.

For the purpose of this contextual overview, the history of the study area is divided into five time periods based upon common social, economic, technological themes. The five time periods for the study area are Farms and Fields (1847 to 1870); Initial Settlement (1871 to 1899); Streetcar Suburbs (1900 to 1929); The Era of Infilling (1930 to 1945); and the Post War Period (1946 to Present).