This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
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