Salt Lake Terminal Company
This page was last updated on December 21, 2008.
Additional Sources:
- Salt Lake Terminal Company — An excerpt from Ira Swett's "Interurbans of Utah".
- Corporate information — Information from the files of the Utah State Public Utilities Commission.
The Salt Lake Terminal Company was a joint company owned by Bamberger Railroad and Salt Lake & Utah Railroad, and served as the two companies terminal in Salt Lake City. There was a joint passenger terminal that stood on the southwest corner of West Temple and South Temple streets in Salt Lake City, where today's Symphony Hall is located.
Chronology History
November 29, 1913:
Salt Lake Terminal Company organized to build a joint union station in Salt Lake City. Owned jointly by Bamberger Electric Railroad and Salt Lake & Utah Railroad. (Utah PSC corporate index 10380)
1946:
With the abandonment of the Salt Lake & Utah Railroad in March 1946, Bamberger Railroad became sole owner of the Salt Lake Terminal Company at auction on July 26, 1946, for the price of $1.00.
In late 1947, Bamberger sold the terminal buildings and yards to Interstate Transit Company, a Union Pacific subsidiary. (In 1943 UP had sold an interest in its Union Pacific Stages and Interstate Transit subsidiaries to Greyhound, and in 1952 the railroad sold its remaining interest to Greyhound.)
The following description in 1949 comes from Ira Swett's book:
Overland Greyhound Lines spent more than $200,000 in remodeling the Terminal. The Terminal encompasses a complete shopping center, a Post House, restaurant seating 128, barber shop, tailor shop, drug store and news stand. The Terminal is air-conditioned and the interior has been modernized using a blue-stone composite material. Expensive rest rooms finished in tile and equipped with showers are located in the basement. The remodeled Terminal is able to serve a passenger load of more than a million persons annually, with 16 busses and two electric trains able to load simultaneously. About 200 busses daily moved through the Terminal in 1949.
The new bus concourse occupied the site of the two southernmost tracks and was at a much higher level. Two tracks remained for trains and were in use up until abandonment of rail passenger service. The subsequent sale of Bamberger's bus subsidiary removed the last physical evidence of the two Interurban companies from public view. The northern most track has been kept to deliver coal and freight to the building.
RESEARCH: Find the date that Symphony Hall was completed, and the back story for what was removed to build the new hall. Was Greyhound's terminal still at that location when Symphony Hall was built?
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