EXHIBITS
(In) The Road of Progress: The West Side and I-15: A New Road
A New Road
Construction Concludes
Construction ended on this initial section of interstate in October 1964. At the time of its completion, planners were already anticipating expansion for the allowance of additional traffic in the face of congestion.[1]
"Essential to making almost any other future plan you can think of come true is transportation. People and communities on the move and that's the Salt Lake area have to be able to get there. It's as simple as that."
– Salt Lake Tribune, 1964[1]
The freeway opened a new road for travelers. It opened the door to a new era of urban development and renewal, but as with earlier developments of the west side, this came at a cost.
Before and After
Slum Clearing in the Cities
The post-war era brought many changes to America’s cities, with urbanization and suburbanization spurring rapid development and a high demand for new infrastructure. This development especially impacted poor and minority communities in the inner cities.[2]
In practice since the nineteenth century, slum clearing grew dramatically after World War II. The Housing Act of 1949 had subsidized redevelopment projects incentivizing local officials to look at their cities with a critical eye towards economically disadvantaged areas.[3] This led to mass displacement, the lowering of land value, and white flight from areas near the interstates.[4] In the early years of the interstate, the communities of many African Americans and other minority groups were bulldozed in the name of progress.[5]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City, Miami, Birmingham, Little Rock, Charlotte, St. Paul, Pasadena, Tulsa, Cleveland, and Minneapolis all had thousands of households displaced by strategic freeway construction that ran through mostly African American and Latine communities.[6] Freeway opposition movements did save some neighborhoods, as in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, but this were not the norm.[7]
Urban Renewal Across the Nation
In the 1960s, New Orleans’ French Quarter and other historically African American communities came under threat by urban renewal (slum clearing).[8] Local preservationists and activists tried to prevent as much damage as possible, but some sections of the community were lost to construction.[9]
At the 1964 New York World’s Fair, a massive protest tried to influence public opinion in favor of the African American communities that were impacted by Robert Moses’ superhighway projects in NYC.[10]
Salt Lake City’s Urban Renewal
The west side had been a red-lined community, labeled as “hazardous” to investment due to the racial make-up of the residents. In Salt Lake City the freeway was a first step towards reshaping this community through urban renewal.
After the first sections of I-15 were completed, rezoning occurred, turning several dozen blocks of land from residential areas into heavy industrial zones. Schools were destroyed, new homeowners displaced, and the homeless population removed.[11]
Swede Town
The west side had been home to a wide variety of ethnic communities prior to the interstate’s construction. For economic and class reasons, urban renewal targeted one of Salt Lake City’s largest Swedish communities.[13] The railroad, mining industries, and the placement of the industrial zoning were motivating factors for where I-15 was built.[14]
Swede Town went from being a boom town in the early twentieth century to being filled with industrial zoning in the 1950s. The area known as Rose Park was once home to hundreds of Swedish families, but the development of I-15 and changes in zoning from residential to heavy industrial decimated the community.[15] By 1976 it had dwindled to just forty families.[16]
“Displaced?”
The displacement of west side residents during construction forced many out of the west side entirely as they scrambled to find housing in classified ads like those seen here. In the shuffle, families lost more than their homes. Some, such as Roy Rushton (pictured here) lost their family dog, with only luck reuniting them.[17]
Demolition of the Franklin School
Homes were not the only buildings destroyed during construction. Built in 1892, the Franklin School located at Second South and Seventh West was directly in the path of the interstate. Prior to its closure for use by the Highway Department as a lab for materials testing and its eventual demolition in 1965, 631 students had attended the school.[18]
Endnotes:
[1] “Looking Ahead on S.L. Transportation,” The Salt Lake Tribune, October 27, 1964.
[2] ] Mark H. Rose and Raymond A. Mohl, Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939, 3rd ed. (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee, 2012), 97
[3] William J., Collins and Katharine L. Shester, “Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal in the United States,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5, no. 1 (2013): 239.
[4] Tom Lewis, Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2013), 193.
[5] Robin Faith Bachin, editor, “Race, Housing, and Displacement in Miami,” University of Miami, date accessed June 01 2023, https://scholarship.miami.edu/esploro/outputs/991031504486902976.
[6] Rose and Mohl, 107-110.
[7] Rose and Mohl, 109
[8] Rose and Mohl, 105-106.
[9] Lewis, 186-190
[10] Lewis, 193
[11] “Franklin School Doomed for Highway Project,” Salt Lake Times, January 29, 1965; “S.L. Hears Protests on 7th W. Freeway,” Deseret News, January 22, 1957.
[12] “Attacking Blighted Housing Problem,” The Salt Lake Tribune, September 14, 1964.
[13] Jerome K. Full, “Freeway Bid to Save $263,00 for State,” The Salt Lake Tribune, December 12, 1958; “What is an ‘Express Highway’?”, Deseret News, January 15, 1948; Vandra Huber, “Tucked in Its Almost Forgotten Corner, Swede Town Still Boasts of ‘Good Life’,” The Salt Lake Tribune, December 9, 1976.
[14] “S.L. ‘Failure’ Slows Start on Freeway,” The Salt Lake Tribune, January 4, 1959; “7th West Set at S.L. Highway Meet,” Salt Lake Telegram, February 10, 1948.
[15] Full, “Freeway Bid to Save $263,00 for State.”
[16] Huber, “Tucked in Its Almost Forgotten Corner.”
[17] Ted Cannon, “About the Happiest Kid,” Deseret News, June 04, 1959.
[18] “Franklin School Doomed for Highway Project,” Salt Lake Times, January 29, 1965.