This property on 1st Avenue has served the LDS church with three different structures, beginning with a chapel and cultural hall in 1877. That building had served its purpose by the early 20th century. The Chapel was replaced in 1904 and the cultural hall in 1926 as part of a large Ashton & Evans addition.

The 1904 Victorian Gothic-style Chapel (architect unknown) was built of red pressed brick in the shape of a cross. Gothic design elements include a vaulted roof and pointed windows with small, leaded diamond panes. Larger stained-glass windows have insignia of the All-Seeing Eye and Alpha and Omega inscriptions, both of which were rare symbolisms in churches of this area.

In 1925 a large three-day jubilee and homecoming was held in the still-standing 1877 cultural hall to raise funds to replace that structure with a “modern amusement hall and classrooms.” Interestingly, Raymond J. Ashton served as the chair of Childrens’ Activities committee tasked with planning storytelling and games (Twenty first ward).

The 1926 Ashton & Evans addition consists of a Relief Society room, auditorium and ballroom (also known as a cultural hall, recreation hall or amusement hall in Mormon parlance), twelve Sunday School classrooms, and a banquet hall with attached kitchen. When compared to the Chapel, the “addition is the product of a more sophisticated period, yet it retains strict observance to good form” (Division of State History). The addition has a Tudor Revival quality with walls of red tapestry brick and oval windows encased in cement moldings. The main double doors open to a hall and a wide stairway.

LDS Church President Heber J. Grant spoke at the Dec 1926 dedication of the addition (500 attend). By Feb 1927, the “stage [designed] with all the latest improvements” was being used by the Maimonides Club – a Jewish social group – to stage the three-act comedy Kempy. On April 27. 1969, the 650 ward members unanimously voted to sustain a proposal that the entire building be torn down and replaced with new buildings (Old 21st Ward chapel).

This building complex was entered into the Utah State Register of Historic Sites in 1970 and was demolished and replaced in the same year.