Name • Rose Park
Location • Northwest Salt Lake City
History • As soldiers returned to Salt Lake City from World War II, married and began families, they needed inexpensive homes in new neighborhoods.
That was a major reason that developer Alan E. Brockbank constructed about 150 homes in a previously undeveloped part of Salt Lake City centered at 800 N. 1200 West northwest of downtown in 1947. Most of the sturdy brick houses sold for less than $10,000.
He called the place Rose Park, and eventually about 2,000 homes were built in the area.
According to author Linda Sillitoe's The History of Salt Lake County, Brockbank's grandfather was a gardener for the queen of England at Buckingham Palace. She wrote that Brockbank designed the street layout to look like a rose when viewed from the air. Streets such as American Beauty Drive that remain today were named after types of roses.
The book A History of Salt Lake's Rose Park Stake said that Brockbank purchased much of the land in 1945 when he saw roses growing at a small grocery store in the area and figured that if the soil could produce such beautiful roses, the area should be named Rose Park.
Today • These days, the neighborhood is filled with tree-lined streets and small, well-kept brick homes. There is a relatively new elementary school in the heart of the subdivision and the beautiful Day-Riverside library on the banks of the Jordan River on the west side of the area. A number of Latino-oriented businesses and Mexican restaurants attest to the area's diversity.
Tom Wharton