Over the years the TBHC has grown to include several out buildings. Behind the museum is a three car garage filled with more historic artifacts. Also on the property are a replica one-room school house, a replica blacksmith shop, a farm implement barn, an outhouse, and the old dairy store which is now available to be rented for gatherings such as birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, wedding receptions, family reunions, meetings, play rehearsals, piano recitals, and many other uses.
Since the beginning, the Taylorsville Bennion Heritage Center has been a community asset. The Deseret News in February 2002 called it “the city’s historic treasure” and “a local historic landmark”. The members of the Taylorsville Historic Preservation Committee, who operate this facility on behalf of the City of Taylorsville, believes in partnering with other standing city committees as well as other community resources for the benefit of all. The Taylorsville community gardens are housed at the TBHC, and they run out of space every year because so many people would like to have a small plot of land to grow vegetables.
Several community members lease space from the city to house their farm animals in the barns at the TBHC. They make these animals are available for viewing and petting by visitors. In return the visitors get a small taste of what farm life was like in early Taylorsville including the sounds and smells. The Taylorsville Arts Council uses the dairy store to rehearse their annual musical, and many scouts have earned their eagle because of projects at the TBHC.
The museum houses artifacts from some of the earliest settlers of Taylorsville. In the Carpenter shop are wood working tools which belonged to Archibald Frame, Sr. and Jr., and may well have been used to build the Jones family home and the Salt Lake Temple. In the scout display is the sash showing the badges earned by the 2nd person in the Salt Lake Valley to receive his eagle. Many of the tools in the blacksmith shop were belonged to William Deverall – owner of one of the first blacksmith shops in Taylorsville. On display is a square grand piano built in about 1895 and originally owned by Adam S. Bennion, and a pump organ that was used in the first LDS Ward house in the Bennion area. There are wedding dresses from some of our early settlers.
The Zoo, Arts and Parks (ZAP) grants received by the TBHC have been a key element in our efforts to spread the word of us to the community. Since 2009, these grants have paid for the bus service to bring elementary school classes to our facility on a field trip. We have had from 1500 to 2000 students plus their teachers, aides, and parent volunteers visit our facility each year for the past 7 years. We are pleased to be able to offer this program again this year. Every year, we have some students who are so excited about their visit that they bring their parents back for a more in depth, hands-on experience. Many of the same teachers bring their classes every year. They even start scheduling their spring visits in September. Because of the success of this program, we are able to expose many more residents of Taylorsville to our unique facility and hopefully ignite in them an interest in the history of their community. This is an invaluable opportunity.
The ZAP grants also allow us to provide handouts to the teachers such as twenty questions, word search puzzles, and other activities that the students can do back in the classroom to reinforce what they learned on the field trip. These teacher packets also include a bibliography of history and other related books that teachers can check out from the museum. We also include written histories of Taylorsville such as the booklet, “History of the Jones Dairy House in Taylorsville, Utah”.
We are very appreciative of the support of our city’s elected officials, the members of our community, and the ZAP organization. We could not function without this continued support.
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