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Historic place

Kearns Building

132 S Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT

Thomas Kearns's white terracotta office tower opened in 1911 and housed what was billed as the most beautiful buffet in the country.

📅 1911–present🏛️ OtherStill here
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The story

The Kearns Building was built from 1909 to 1911 for Thomas Kearns, a former Utah senator and major stockholder in The Salt Lake Tribune. Los Angeles architects Parkinson & Bergstrom designed the ten-story Sullivanesque building, with a steel-reinforced concrete frame and white terracotta facade. Kearns was accused of manipulating the city council and its building code during construction.

About a third of the office space was rented before it opened in February 1911, and most of it was rented by April. Early tenants included the clothiers Gardner & Adams and Rowe & Kelly, and the building housed the Mecca, billed as the most beautiful buffet in the United States. The first-floor columns and entrance arch are granite from the Aberdeen Quarry. It joined the National Register on August 17, 1982.

What's There Now

It still stands on Main Street as an office and retail building.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

Parkinson & Bergstrom also designed the Hotel Utah.
The Utah Theatre demolition crew cut through the Kearns parking garage in 2022.
A 2019 Tribune headline reports a $25 million renovation of the building.

Nearby history

Salt Lake Tribune Building (Ezra Thompson Building)

143 S Main St · 66 m away
The Tribune bought this 1924 mining-mayor's tower in 1937 and left in 2005; now it is a university.

Lamb's Grill

169 S Main St · 101 m away
Utah's oldest restaurant started in Logan on Washington's birthday, then spent 78 years on Main Street before closing in

Utah Theatre (Pantages)

144 S Main Street · 104 m away
A Pantages vaudeville house that became the Utah Theatre, was split in two in 1968, and was torn down in 2022 despite a

Walker Bank Building

175 S Main Street · 128 m away
The Walker brothers' bank headquarters topped the city in 1912 and still carries a rooftop weather beacon.

Salt Lake Theatre

75 E 100 S · 146 m away
Brigham Young called himself designer and general dictator of a 1,500-seat theatre that took months to knock down.

Crazy Goat Saloon

165 S West Temple · 148 m away
The Dead Goat renamed and reopened as a strip club, which led to a lawsuit with the LDS Church.

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kearns_Building